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FRANCE 


FRANCE 


BY 


JOHN   EDWARD  COURTENAY  ^ODLEY 


VOLUME    I 

INTEODUCTION 

BOOK  I -THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE 

BOOK  II— THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE 


THE   MACMH^LAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 

1898 

All  rights  reserved 


COPTBIGHT,   1898, 

bt  the  macmillan  company. 


KoTtoootr  ^tnt 

J.  8.  Cuihing  &  Co.      Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mui.  U.8.A. 


TN 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CaltvopimTa 
SANTA  BAP.b1ra  ^^'"'^ 


RONALD  VICTOR  COURTENAY  BODLEY 

AND 

JOSSELIN  REGINALD   COURTENAY  BODLEY 

®n  tJ)fir  ifaottjer's  BirtfjUag 

BiFTKMBBB  26,  1897 


CONTENTS 


FAOB 

Fbeface ix 

Chronological  Table xiii 

Introduction 1 

BOOK    I 

THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Historical  Aspects  of  the  Revolution     ...      67 

CHAPTER  II 
Liberty 127 

CHAPTER  in 
Equality 167 

CHAPTER    IV 
Fraternity  and  Patriotism 213 


viii  CONTENTS 


BOOK  II 

THE  CONSTITUTION  AND   THE   CHIEF  OF 
THE  STATE 

CHAPTER  I 

PAQK 

The  Constitution 261 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Chief  of  the  State 271 

INDEX  TO  VOLUME  I 333 


PEEFACE 

I  TAKE  this  opportunity  of  rendering  my  thanks  to  the 
many  French  people  of  all  classes  and  of  all  shades  of  opin- 
ion who  for  more  than  seven  years  have  in  manifold  ways 
helped  me  in  my  work.  Some  of  them  are  mentioned 
incidentally  in  the  Introductory  Chapter,  but  it  would  be 
impossible  to  name  all  those  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for 
ideas,  for  facilities  in  pursuing  my  studies,  and  for  innu- 
merable kind  offices.  I  have  to  offer  my  special  gratitude 
to  three  distinguished  Frenchmen  who,  between  them, 
have  found  time  to  read  nearly  all  the  proofs  of  these 
volumes  :  — M.  Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu,  the  eminent  Econo- 
mist and  Member  of  the  Institute  ;  M.  Richard  Wad- 
dington,  Senator  of  the  Seine  Inferieure,  the  accomplished 
historian  of  the  Seven  Years'  War,  whom  we  can  partly 
claim,  as  not  only  was  he  educated  at  Rugby  like  his 
lamented  brother,  whom  we  all  knew  at  Albert  Gate,  but 
he  was  also  an  officer  of  our  Royal  Horse  Artillery ;  and 
M.  Camille  Barere,  French  Ambassador  at  Berne,  who  is 
equally  familiar  with  our  language.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  tliose  high  authorities  are  not  responsible  for 
any  of  the  opinions  expressed  in  this  book,  as  on  impor- 
tant matters  of  public  policy  they  differ  from  one  another. 
Their  verification  of  facts  and  their  general  criticisms 
have,  however,  been  of  the  highest  value. 


X  PREFACE 

The  capital  subject  of  these  volumes  is  Political  France 
after  a  Century  of  Revolution.  The  plan  of  the  work 
needs  little  explanation.  The  Introductory  Chapter  is 
not  an  essential  part  of  it,  but  it  may  be  of  utility,  as  it 
contains  a  description  of  the  influences  encountered  by 
a  student  of  public  questions  in  France.  The  relations 
of  the  great  Revolution  with  modern  France  are  then 
examined,  and  this  gives  an  opportunity  of  a  view  of 
certain  phases  of  French  life  which  would  otherwise  be 
neglected  in  a  political  treatise.  The  Executive  and 
Legislative  Powers  are  the  special  matters  which  form 
the  basis  of  the  remainder  of  the  work.  Their  operation 
under  the  regime  which  has  subsisted  in  France  during 
the  last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  leads  to  the 
study  of  various  conceptions  which  the  French  have  had, 
during  a  hundred  years  of  political  experiment,  of  the 
functions  of  a  Chief  of  the  State  and  of  Parliamentary 
Institutions.  I  do  not  think  that  I  need  apologise  for 
having  treated  those  important  subjects  in  minute  detail. 

In  this  swift  age  of  handbooks  two  volumes  may  seem 
a  slender  result  of  seven  years'  uninterrupted  labour  ; 
but  those  who  have  seriously  studied  problems  of  govern- 
ment will  recognise  that  the  time  which  has  been  devoted 
to  the  questions  dealt  with  here  is  not  excessive.  More- 
over, I  may  say  that  with  half  the  labour  expended  on 
these  pages  I  could  have  produced  three  or  four  years 
ago,  three  or  four  volumes  examining  much  less  thoroughly 
the  same  subjects.  During  the  final  stages  of  my  work 
I  have  often  realised  the  profound  wisdom  of  Pascal's 
famous  ending  of  his  sixteenth  Lettre  Provindale :  "  Je 
n'ai  fait  celle-ci  plus  longue  que  parce  que  je  n'ai  pas  en 
le  loisir  de  la  faire  plus  courte." 


PREFACE 


To  properly  understand  the  relations  of  modern  France 
with  the  Revolution,  and  the  working  of  its  political  insti- 
tutions, it  has  been  necessary  to  study  with  attentive  care 
a  number  of  subjects  referred  to  only  incidentally  in  these 
volumes.  It,  however,  seemed  better  to  confine  the  actual 
scope  of  this  work  to  the  two  themes  mentioned  above 
than  to  add  a  third  volume  on  the  jurisdictions  of  the  great 
interior  departments  of  the  State,  which  in  France  sur- 
vive revolutions  and  changes  of  regime.  It  would  needs 
have  been  a  fragmentary  and  inexhaustive  supplement  to 
a  work  which  I  have  striven  to  make  as  complete  as 
possible  ;  but  I  have  planned  another  to  deal  with  the 
Centralised  Administration,  the  Church  and  Education, 
the  Judicial  and  Fiscal  Systems,  as  well  as  with  questions 
relating  to  Capital  and  Labour,  to  the  Colonies  and  to 
the  Army. 

"  Diligence  and  accuracy,"  said  a  great  master  of  our 
language,  "  are  the  only  merits  which  an  historical  writer 
can  ascribe  to  himself."  My  experience  is  that  an  author 
may  with  greater  confidence  vouch  for  his  diligence  than 
for  his  accuracy,  even  though  he  treat  not  of  the  dim  ages 
of  which  Gibbon  wrote,  but  of  events  in  the  lifetime  of 
men  he  has  seen  or  of  contemporary  laws  and  practices. 
The  most  scrupulous  care  does  not  assure  perfect  immu- 
nity from  error,  as  I  found  out  in  the  attentive  revision 
to  which  these  volumes  have  been  submitted.  There  was 
a  point  of  electoral  jurisprudence  on  which  the  text-books 
were  obscure,  and  though  not  of  international  importance, 
it  is  interesting  to  students  of  comparative  procedure  ;  so 
I  wrote  to  a  Deputy  who  is  a  parliamentary  authority  to 
clear  it  up,  and  incorporated  his  answer  in  my  text. 
Later,  being  invited  by  the  experienced  and  intelligent 


PREFACE 


Mayor  of  a  village  to  be  present  at  a  poll  over  which  he 
presided,  I  repeated  the  question  to  him,  and  he  gave  a 
completely  different  reply.  Finally,  I  referred  it  to  a 
Senator,  and  he  demonstrated  so  clearly  that  both  the 
Deputy  and  the  Mayor  were  wrong,  that  I  adopted  his 
version.  The  incident  shows  that  neither  familiarity 
with  a  country  nor  assiduous  care,  nor  the  kindly  help 
of  its  best-informed  inhabitants,  can  insure  infallibility. 
I  hope,  however,  that  errors  of  fact  are  not  frequent  in 
this  work  ;  and  should  any  have  survived  its  vigilant 
emendation  I  shall  be  extremely  grateful  if  readers  or 
critics  will  point  them  out  to  me. 


A  Table  of  Some  of  the  Moke  Important  Dates 
IN  THE  History  of  France  since  the  French 
Revolution 


1789  Opening  of  the  States-General  at  Versailles,  May  5. 

The  Third  Estate  resolves  itself  into  a  National  Assembly, 

June  17. 
Fall  of  the  Bastille,  July  14. 
Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  August  20. 

1790  Division  of  France  into  Departments,  January  15. 
Suppression  of  titles  of  nobility  and  all  honorary  distinctions, 

June  19. 
Federation  on  the  Champ  de  Mars,  July  14. 

1791  Death  of  Mirabeau,  April  4. 

The  flight  to  Varennes  of  Louis  XVI.  and  his  family,  June  20. 
The  King  accepts  the  Constitution  of  1791,  September  13. 
First  meeting  of  Legislative  Assembly,  October  1. 

1792  Sack  of  the  Tuileries,  August  10. 

Massacres  in  the  prisons  of  Paris,  September  2  and  3. 
First  meeting  of  Convention  :  Battle  of  Valmy,  September  20. 
Abolition  of  the  Monarchy  :  Commencement  of  Republican 
Era,  September  21. 

1793  Execution  of  Louis  XVI.,  January  21. 
Beginning  of  Vendean  War. 

Fall  of  the  Girondins,  May  31. 
Revolutionary  Calendar  came  into  use  September  22. 
Execution  of  Marie  Antoinette,  October  16. 
Bonaparte  at  the  Siege  of  Toulon,  December  19. 

1794  The  Reign  of  Terror  may  be  considered  to  have  lasted  from  the 

arrest  of  the  Girondins  in  October,  1793,  to  the  fall  of  Robes- 
pierre (9  Thermidor,  An  II.),  July  27,  1794. 

1795  Suppression  of  the  Revolutionary  Tribunal. 
Death  of  Louis  XVII.  at  the  Temple,  June  12. 
Constitution  of  An  III.  adopted,  August  22. 


xlv  TABLE   OF   DATES 


1795  13  Venddmiaire,  An  IV, :  Bonaparte  suppresses  the  anti-Revolu- 

tionary insurrection  in  Paris,  October  5. 
Nomination  of  the  Directory,  November  1. 

1796  Bonaparte  Chief  of  the  Army  of  Italy. 

Battles  of  Castiglione,  August  5,  and  of  Areola,  November  15. 

1797  Battle  of  Rivoli,  January  14. 

18   Fructidor,  An   V. :    Coup  d'etat  of  Augereau  against  the 

counter-revolution,  September  4. 
Treaty  of  Campo  Formio  (France  and  Austria),  October  17: 

Bonaparte  returns  to  Paris,  December  5. 

1798  Egyptian  Expedition  :  Battle  of  the  Pyramids,  July  21. 

1799  Invasion  of  Syria  by  Bonaparte :  Battles  of  Mount  Thabor,  April 

16,  and  of  St.  Jean  d'Acre,  May  16. 
Bonaparte  returns  to  France:    Coup  d'J^iat  du  18  Brumaire, 

November  9. 
Bonaparte  First  Consul,  December  13 :  Constitution  of  An 

VIII. 

1800  Administrative  reorganisation  by  Bonaparte. 
Battle  of  Marengo  (Austrians),  June  14. 
Battle  of  Hohenlinden  (Austrians) ,  December  8. 

1801  Retirement  of  French  from  Egypt. 

1802  Peace  of  Amiens  (England,  France,  and  Spain),  March  25. 
Ratification  of  Concordat,  and  organisation  of  Public  Education. 
Bonaparte  Consul  for  10  years,  May  8;  and  for  life,  August  2. 

1803  Rupture  of  the  peace  with  England. 

1804  Assassination  of  the  Due  d'Enghien,  March  21. 
Proclamation  of  Empire,  May  18. 
Publication  of  Civil  Code. 

Preparations  to  invade  England. 

Coronation  of  Napoleon  at  Notre  Dame,  December  2. 

1805  Napoleon  King  of  Italy,  March  18. 
Battle  of  Trafalgar,  October  21. 

Battle  of  Austerlitz  (Austrians  and  Russians),  December  2 : 
Treaty  of  Presburg,  December  26. 

1806  Battle    of   Jena   (Prussians),    October    14:    The    continental 

blockade. 

1807  Battle  of  Eylau  (Russians),  February  8. 

Battle  of  Friedland   (Russians),  June  14:    Peace  of  Tilsitt, 
July  8. 

1808  Invasion  of  Spain. 

1809  Battle  of  Wagram  (Austrians),  July  6. 


TABLE   OF  DATES 


1810  Divorce  of  Josephine :    Marriage  of  Napoleon  and  the  Arch- 

duchess Marie  Louise,  April  1. 

1811  Birth  of  the  King  of  Rome,  March  20. 

1812  French  reverses  in  the  Peninsula. 

Invasion  of  Russia :  Retreat  from  Moscow  began,  October  19. 

1813  Campaign  of  Germany:  Battle  of  Leipsic  (coalition),  October 

18,  19. 

1814  Campaign  of  France :  First  Entry  of  the  Allies  in  Paris,  March 

31 :  Abdication  of  Napoleon,  April  11. 
First  Restoration  :  Louis  XVIIL  enters  Paris,  May  3. 
Opening  of  Congress  of  Vienna,  November  3. 

1815  Napoleon  lands  from  Elba  at  GoLfe  Juan,  March  1. 

Flight  of  Louis  XVIIL :  Arrival  of  Napoleon  in  Paris,  March  20 : 
Hundred  Days. 

Battle  of  Waterloo,  June  18. 

Second  Entry  of  the  Allies  in  Paris,  July  6 :  Second  Restora- 
tion. 

The  White  Terror. 

Arrival  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,  October  13:  Execution  of 
Marshal  Ney,  December  7. 

1820  Assassination  of  the  Due  de  Berry,  February  13. 

Birth  of  his  son  the  Due  de  Bordeaux  (Comte  de  Chambord), 
September  29. 

1821  Death  of  Napoleon  at  St.  Helena,  May  5. 

1823  Action  of  France  with  Holy  Alliance :  Occupation  of  Spain : 

Siege  of  Trocadero,  August  31. 

1824  Death  of  Louis  XVIIL,  September  16 :  Succession  of  Comte 

d'Artois  as  Charles  X. 

1825  Coronation  of  Charles  X.  at  Reims. 

1827  Battle  of  Navarino,  September  20. 

Fall  of  the  "  Ultra  "ministry  of  M.  de  Villfele. 

1828  Moderate  ministry  of  M.  de  Martignac. 

1829  The  "  Ultras  "  return  to  office  under  M.  de  Polignac. 

1830  Invasion  of  Algiers. 

Revolution  of  July :  Abdication  of  Charles  X. :  Due  d'Orldans 

becomes  King  of  the  French. 
Monarchy  of  July:  Louis  Philippe. 

1831  Casimir-Perier  Ministry. 

1832  Death  of  the  Due  de  Reichstadt  (King  of  Rome). 
Ministry  of  11th  of  October  (Broglie,  Thiers,  Guizot). 
A  rrest  of  the  Duchesse  de  Berry. 


TABLE   OF   DATES 


1836  Mol^  Ministry :  Arrest  of  Louis  Napoleon  at  Strasbourg,  October 

30. 
1840  Louis  Napoleon  lands  at  Boulogne  and  is  imprisoned  at  Ham. 

Soult-Guizot  Ministry. 

Second  Funeral  of  Napoleon. 

1842  Death  of  the  Due  d'Orl^ans,  heir  to  the  throne,  July  13. 

1843  The  entente  cordiale  between  France  and  England. 

1844  The  Pritchard  affair. 
1846  The  Spanish  marriages. 

1848  Revolution  of  24th  February:  Abdication  of  Louis  PhDippe. 
The  Second  Republic  :  The  Constituent  Assembly. 
Insurrection  in  Paris :  The  Days  of  June. 

Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  elected  President  of  the  Republic, 
December  10. 

1849  The  Legislative  Assembly. 

1851  The   Coup  (V^tat :  The  Presidency  conferred  by  plebiscite  on 

Louis  Napoleon  for  ten  years,  December  2-28. 

1852  The  Second  Empire  :  Louis  Napoleon  after  a  second  plebiscite 

proclaimed  Emperor  as  Napoleon  III.,  December  2. 

1853  Marriage  of  Napoleon  III.  with  Eugenie  de  Guzman  (de  Mon- 

tijo),  January  30. 

1854  Crimean  War. 

1856  Birth  of  the  Prince  Imperial :  Treaty  of  Paris. 

1859  Italian  War :  Battles  of  Magenta  and  Solferino :  Peace  of  Villa- 

franca,  April-July. 

1860  Treaty  of  Turin :  Cession  of  Savoy  and  Nice  to  France,  March  24. 
Commercial  treaty  between  England  and  France. 

1862  Mexican  Expedition. 

1867-69  Gradual  transformation  of  Government  into  "Liberal  Em- 
pire." 

1870  Plebiscite  on  the  Revised  Constitution. 

War  with  Prussia :  Battle  of  Sedan,  September  2 :  Fall  of  the 

Empire. 
Third  Republic  :  Revolution  of  4th  of  September. 
Investiture  of  Paris :  Campaign  of  the  Loire. 
Surrender  of  Metz,  October  27. 

1871  Capitulation  of  Paris,  January  28. 

Election  of  National  Assembly,  which  met  at  Bordeaux  Feb- 
ruary 12. 

Signature  at  Versailles  of  preliminaries  of  peace,  including 
cession  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  February  26. 


TABLE   OF  DATES 


1871  Entry  of  Germans  iu  Paris,  March  1. 

Insurrection  of  the  Commune,  March  18. 

Treaty  of  Frankfort,  May  10. 

Defeat  of  Commune  and  occupation  of  Paris  by  Versailles  troops. 

May  26, 
M.  Thiers  proclaimed  "President  of  the  French  Republic," 

August  31. 
1873  Death  of  Louis  Napoleon,  January  9. 

Resignation  of  M.  Thiers :  Marshal  MacMahon  President  of 

the  Republic,  May  24. 

1875  Dissolution  of  the  National  Assembly  after  it  had  voted  the 

Constitution  of  1875. 

1876  First  Elections  of  Senate  and  Chamber  of  Deputies  under  new 

Constitution. 

1877  The  Seize  Mai. 

1879  Resignation  of  Marshal  MacMahon:  M.  Gr^vy  President  of 

the  Republic. 
Death  of  the  Prince  Imperial  in  Zululand,  June  1. 
The  Legislature  returns  to  Paris  from  Versailles. 

1880  The  Ferry  decrees  issued  relating  to  religious  Orders. 

1881  Gambetta  Prime  Minister,  November  14  to  January  26,  1882 

(Le  Grand  Ministfere). 

1882  Death  of  Gambetta,  December  31. 

1883  The  Second  Ferry  Ministry,  the  most  durable  of  all  the  Ministries 

of  the  Republic,  held  office  from  February  21, 1883,  to  March 
30,  1885. 
Death  of  the  Comte  de  Chambord,  August  24. 

1884  Partial  Revision  of  the  Constitution. 

1885  Disaster  of  Lang-Son,  March  28. 

Re-election  of  M.  Grevy  as  President  of  the  Republic,  Decem- 
ber 28. 

1886  General  Boulanger  Minister  of  War,  January,  1886,  to  May,  1887. 
Expulsion  of  the  Princes  of  families  which  had  reigned  over 

France. 

1887  Resignation  of  M.  Gr^vy :  M.  Carnot  President  of  the  Republic, 

December  3. 

1888  Progress  of  Boulangist  movement. 

1889  Election  of  General  Boulanger  as  Member  for  Paris,  January  27 : 

His  flight  from  France,  April  1. 

1890  M.  de  Freycinet  Prime  Minister  for  the  fourth  time. 
1892  Exposure  of  the  Panama  affair. 


xvlU  TABLE  OF  DATES 


1893  Visit  of  the  officers  of  the  Russian  squadron  to  Paris. 

1894  Assassination  of  M.  Carnot :  M.  Casimir-P^kier  President  of 

the  Republic,  June  27. 
Death  of  the  Comte  de  Paris,  September  8. 

1895  Resignation  of  M.  Casimir-Pdrier :  M.  F^Llx  Faure  President 

of  the  Republic,  January  17. 
Madagascar  attached  to  the  French  Colonies,  December  12. 

1896  M.  Meline  formed  the  34th  Cabinet  which  had  taken  office  in 

France  since  the  resignation  of  M.  Thiers  in  1873. 


INTRODUCTION 


A  WRITER  who  undertakes  the  study  of  the  institu- 
tions and  tendencies  of  a  nation  not  his  own,  and  espe- 
cially an  Englishman  who  thus  turns  his  attention  to 
France,  has  before  him  two  great  masterpieces,  the 
methods  of  which  it  behooves  him  to  observe.  The  one  is 
the  journal  of  an  English  traveller  in  France :  the  other 
is  the  treatise  of  a  French  philosopher  on  an  English- 
speaking  community.  Though  a  century  has  passed  since 
Arthur  Young  published  the  record  of  his  rides  through 
France  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution,  it  retains  all  its 
freshness:  and  if  he  is  now  only  read  with  curiosity  by 
his  countrymen,  the  French  regard  him  as  a  classic 
authority  on  the  outward  aspect  of  their  land  in  the  last 
days  of  the  old  regime.  Tocqueville's  work  on  the  new 
Democracy  of  America  which  sixty  years  ago  attracted 
the  notice  of  thinkers  of  all  nations  has  little  in  common 
with  that  of  the  Suifolk  squire,  who  had  no  pretension 
to  abstract  science.  Arthur  Young  notes  incidentally 
day  by  day  his  impressions  on  the  condition  of  the  people 
and  the  political  movement  imminent  among  them  in 
a  minute  inquiry  into  the  state  of  French  agriculture, 
while  Tocqueville  sets  himself  the  deliberate  task  of 
remarking  the  phenomena  arising  out  of  the  democratic 

VOL.    I  1  B 


INTRODUCTION 


expansion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  stock.  Each  undertook 
his  inquest  at  a  momentous  stage  of  the  progress  of 
civilisation.  The  Travels  in  France  were  completed 
under  a  regime  eight  hundred  years  old,  just  before  the 
great  upheaval,  which,  in  destroying  it,  convulsed  the 
world.  Tocqueville  crossed  the  Atlantic  also  on  the  eve 
of  a  revolution,  less  resounding,  but  of  more  permanent 
and  wide-spread  effect  than  that  of  1789.  Many  of  the 
actors  in  that  stupendous  drama  survived  in  France,  and 
in  America  he  saw  men  who  had  taken  part  in  the  War 
of  Independence.  It  was  the  roseate  morning  of  the 
Orleanist  dispensation.  The  French  bourgeoisie  which 
had  led  the  revolt  against  the  ancient  bondage,  had,  after 
forty  years'  wandering  in  a  series  of  wildernesses,  entered 
the  promised  land  of  statutory  monarchy  and  of  middle- 
class  domination:  while  to  complete  its  complacent  joy, 
England,  its  constitutional  pattern,  in  whose  history  it 
had  found  far-fetched  revolutionary  antitypes,  now  fol- 
lowed the  lead  of  France,  and  1832,  which  endowed  the 
British  middle-classes  with  political  power,  was  the  echo 
of  the  glorious  Days  of  July.  But  though  it  was  the 
period  of  the  century  when  the  tradition  of  the  French 
Revolution  was  most  in  favour,  its  results  had  produced 
disillusion  in  the  minds  of  philosophers  who  had  the 
power  of  detaching  themselves  from  superstitious  rever- 
ence for  theories  and  for  doctrines.  The  nightmare  of 
the  Terror  was  the  starting-point  of  the  memories  of  all 
the  elders  of  that  generation,  and  those  who  were  born 
after  the  reign  of  the  Jacobins  had  seen  with  their  young 
eyes  the  other  tangible  results  of  the  Revolution :  —  the 
reconstruction  of  France  by  the  agency  of  military  des- 
potism; the  delivery  of  the  autocratic  fabric  by  foreign 


INTEODUCTION 


conquerors  to  the  heir  of  divine  right,  reinstated  to  deck 
it  as  a  constitutional  figure-head  of  the  English  model; 
the  clerical  reaction  which  called  forth  the  parliamentary 
Monarchy  of  the  middle-classes.  Hence  observers  like 
Tocqueville,  sceptical  of  the  finality  of  any  successive 
phase  of  the  Revolution,  turned  with  hope  to  the  Western 
Continent  and  its  new  civilisation  untrammelled  by  a 
past. 

Just  as  the  English  squire  riding  through  France 
could  not  in  his  forecast  of  the  coming  storm  anticipate 
that  its  lasting  result  would  be  a  solid  construction  of 
centralised  government  raised  by  a  too  victorious  soldier, 
so  the  French  philosopher  returned  from  America  con- 
vinced that  he  had  seen  the  land  where  the  social  revolu- 
tion was  so  simple  and  uncomplicated  that  it  had  nearly 
attained  its  limits.  A  few  years  later  the  application  of 
steam-power  and  electricity  was  so  to  transform  the  con- 
ditions of  life  on  that  continent,  that  rapid  means  of 
communication  and  consequent  commercial  development 
produced  a  social  revolution  greater  than  that  which  in 
the  Old  World  followed  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  and  the 
abolition  of  privilege.  We  who  stand  at  the  close  of  the 
century  which  has  seen  the  reconstruction  of  France  by 
Napoleon,  and  the  more  momentous  changes  wrought 
all  over  the  globe  by  scientific  inventions,  which  have 
deprived  Europe  of  its  uncontested  supremacy  as  the 
centre  of  civilisation,  and  which  in  communities,  old  and 
young,  have  raised  new  social  questions  and  altered  the 
aspect  of  the  eternal  struggle  between  rich  and  poor:  we 
whose  calendars  will  soon  mark  the  last  stage  of  the 
second  millenary  period  of  the  Christian  era  may  prob- 
ably witness    unexpected   phenomena   which  will   even 


INTRODUCTION 


more  completely  upset  the  calculations  of  philosophic 
observers. 

Such  considerations  ought  not  to  discourage  the 
student  of  human  institutions  from  minutely  analysing 
the  systems  of  government  or  the  political  and  social 
tendencies  of  his  time ;  but  they  should  deter  him  from 
the  facile  pastime  of  prophecy  which  has  allured  the 
most  cautious  of  philosophers.  No  modern  publicist  is 
more  lucid  than  Tocqueville,  or  more  suggestive  in  ideas 
regarding  the  development  of  mankind:  yet  when  he 
descends  from  the  vantage  ground  whence  he  made  his 
accurate  and  sagacious  observations  he  goes  as  far  astray 
in  his  predictions  as  any  empiric  watching  the  human 
movement  from  an  arm-chair.  Indeed  he  recognises  the 
futility  of  forecast:  "Dans  le  tableau  de  I'avenir  le 
hasard  forme  tou jours  comme  le  point  obscur  ou  I'oeil 
de  r  intelligence  ne  saurait  p^n^trer."^ 

The  pages  of  Tocqueville  display  the  attractiveness  of 
generalisation,  a  method  which  was  perhaps  inevitable 
in  treating  of  a  young  democracy  without  a  past.  But 
there  would  be  no  excuse  for  a  writer  who  used  it  in  a 
treatise  on  France,  the  last  country  in  the  world  about 
which  it  is  possible  to  generalise.  The  ignoring  of  this 
truth  by  the  men  of  the  Revolution  was  a  leading  cause 
of  the  anarchy  and  horror  after  1789.  None  were  ever 
more  eloquent  in  generalities  than  the  Jacobins  of  the 
revolutionary  assemblies.  Superficially  equipped  with 
the  theories  of  Rousseau,  they  evolved  from  them  general 
principles  which  unhappily  they  were  in  a  position  to 
apply  to  the  government  of  France.  We  all  know  what 
the  result  was,  and  how  the  ruin  thus  consummated  had 
^  Dimocratie  en  Amirique,  vol.  ii.  c.  10. 


INTRODUCTION 


to  be  repaired  by  the  hands  of  the  greatest  master  of 
detail  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Napoleon  had  the  impar- 
tial eye  of  an  alien  to  discern  the  nature  of  the  evil ;  but 
Voltaire,  who  knew  his  countrymen  as  well  as  their 
Corsican  protector  came  to  know  them,  had  said  that  in 
every  section  of  the  nation,  in  all  the  relations  of  life, 
were  found  side  by  side  all  the  contradictions  and  incom- 
patibilities possible  to  imagine.^ 

The  treatise  of  Tocqueville,  moreover,  would  be  more 
instructive  if  his  illustrations  were  less  fragmentary,  and 
if  he  dissimulated  less  the  particulars  whereon  he  bases 
his  conclusions,  which  sometimes  have  the  air  of  the 
dogmatisms  of  a  moralist  instead  of  being  the  reflections 
of  a  diligent  traveller.  The  completely  contrary  method 
of  Arthur  Young  has  great  merits.  He,  however,  had 
the  happy  chance  of  keeping  his  roving  diary  at  one  of 
the  most  interesting  crises  of  human  history,  and  a  cen- 
tury later  a  daily  record  of  life  in  France  could,  at  its 
best,  only  furnish  a  collection  of  unarranged  material  for 
future  students.  An  admirable  example  of  work  of  this 
class  is  a  posthumous  volume  of  M.  Taine,  his  Carnets 
de  Voyage^  consisting  of  notes  made  in  the  French  prov- 
inces, when  under  the  Second  Empire  he  was  an  itinerant 
examiner  of  candidates  for  St.  Cyr.  His  more  finished 
Notes  sur  V Angleterre^  and  his  Voyage  en  Italie^  show 
what  excellent  literature  can  thus  be  produced  by  a 
master-hand;  but  this  was  mere  holiday  diversion  com- 
pared to  the  great  work  of  his  life,  of  which  the  chief 
feature  is  the  methodical  classification  of  the  results  of 
his  research  and  experience. 

These  worthy  examples  of  diligence  and  observation 
1  Candide,  c,  xxii. 


INTRODUCTION 


aid  in  projecting  his  plans  the  writer  who  has  undertaken 
the  examination  of  the  problems  of  government  and  other 
cognate  questions  in  a  nation  which  is  the  most  complex 
product  of  civilisation  on  the  face  of  the  globe.  While 
discarding  the  method  adopted  by  Arthur  Young,  the 
drawbacks  of  which  he  modestly  sets  forth  in  the  first 
pages  of  his  journal,  as  I  have  been  led  to  give  exclu- 
sively to  this  work  a  number  of  years,  which  few,  even 
of  those  who  could  spare  them,  would  care  to  devote  to 
the  consideration  of  a  foreign  country,  I  venture  briefly 
to  relate  how  they  have  been  occupied. 

II 

I  came  to  France  in  May,  1890,  and  wrote  the  last 
lines  of  these  volumes  more  than  seven  years  later,  hav- 
ing in  the  interval  not  spent  seven  weeks  away  from 
French  soil,  as  I  had  soon  perceived  that  uninterrupted 
residence  in  the  land  was  the  only  means  of  accomplish- 
ing my  self-imposed  task.  In  bygone  days  tlie  French 
provinces  had  often  attracted  my  steps, —  not  only  haunts 
of  tourists,  such  as  Normandy,  Touraine,  and  Provence, 
but  less  familiar  ground,  from  the  industrial  region  of 
the  North-East,  where  the  factory  smoke  of  Sedan  has 
not  yet  obscured  the  traces  of  the  fumes  of  battle,  to 
Poitiers  and  Angouleme  in  the  West,  where  in  the 
vineyards  far  from  the  frontier  the  phylloxera  is  more 
dreaded  than  the  ravages  of  human  invaders.  Thus 
when  the  idea  of  writing  a  work  on  France  brought  me 
to  live  in  Paris,  I  went  there  not  quite  as  a  stranger. 
In  the  first  months  I  made  or  renewed  acquaintance  with 
many  Parisians  of  various  types  and  schools  of  thought, 


INTRODUCTION 


including  M.  Renan,  M.  Taine,  Comte  Albert  de  Mun, 
Mgr.  Freppel,  and  M.  Clemenceau.  A  sad  thought  over- 
shadows the  memory  of  that  pleasant  summer.  Three  of 
the  five  names  I  have  just  written  are  no  longer  those  of 
living  men ;  and  in  the  ranks  of  all  whom  I  have  known 
during  my  sojourn  in  France  death  has  made  ruthless 
havoc.  Cardinal  Manning,  without  whose  affectionate 
interest  my  knowledge  of  certain  phases  of  French  life 
would  have  been  less  intimate,  said  of  the  projected 
work,  "It  is  like  writing  the  history  of  a  kaleidoscope," 
and  the  words  have  had  a  meaning  not  intended  by  the 
venerable  Cardinal,  who  himself  has  submitted  to  the 
kaleidoscopic  power  which  changes  the  aspect  of  human 
society  without  reference  to  the  vicissitudes  of  govern- 
ment or  the  mobility  of  national  temperament. 

One  who  has  thus  disappeared  of  those  whom  I  saw 
in  my  early  days  in  France  was  the  British  Ambassador 
to  the  Republic.  Lord  Lytton  had,  in  that  capacity, 
some  injustice  done  to  his  remarkable  talents,  coming 
as  he  did  to  the  Embassy  in  Paris  between  two  of  the 
most  distinguished  envoys  ever  lodged  in  the  h6tel  of 
Pauline  Borghese.  His  predecessor.  Lord  Lyons,  was 
the  ablest  professional  diplomatist  of  his  time  in  the 
English  service,  and  his  successor.  Lord  Dufferin,  a 
politician  by  training,  has  taken  into  retirement  the 
fame  of  the  most  brilliant  representative  the  Queen 
has  had  beyond  the  seas  during  her  long  reign.  Lord 
Lytton  had,  however,  a  quality  precious  in  an  ambas- 
sador to  France,  possessed  by  neither  of  those  eminent 
men,  and  rarely  found  in  any  countryman  of  ours. 
In  the  course  of  my  life  I  have  known  the  four  or 
five   Englishmen   reputed  to  have   had   the    completest 


INTKODUCTION 


acquaintance  with  France  and  its  people,  but  the  faculty 
possessed  by  each  of  them  was  akin  to  the  knowledge 
which  an  attentive  doctor  has  of  a  patient.  With  skill, 
often  painstaking  and  accurate,  they  diagnosed  the 
French;  but  not  one  of  them  had  that  sympathy,  in  the 
sense  in  which  the  Latin  races  use  the  term,  cherished 
by  Lord  Lytton  for  the  men  and  women  of  France. 
During  his  mission  in  Paris  it  happened  that  the  French 
Ambassador  in  London  was  M.  Waddington,  who,  for 
different  reasons,  had  an  analogous  gift  of  understand- 
ing the  springs  of  English  action.  Both  diplomatists 
were  of  undeviating  loyalty  to  the  lands  of  their  alle- 
giance, but  each  had  the  inestimable  capacity  of  dis- 
cerning the  point  of  view  of  the  people  with  whom  he 
had  to  treat.  If  modern  ambassadors  held  in  their  hands 
the  issues  of  peace  and  war,  it  might  promote  the  calm 
of  Europe  could  we  always  install  in  the  Faubourg  St. 
Honor^  a  Parisian-minded  Briton,  while  Albert  Gate 
was  tenanted  by  an  English  public-schoolman  who  had 
rowed  in  a  University  race. 

My  first  provincial  voyage  cfStudes  I  will  describe  with 
some  detail  to  show  how  I  made  it  my  aim  from  the  first 
to  see  people  of  eveiy  calling  and  of  every  class  of  the 
community,  without  distinction  of  party.  It  was  a 
happy  experience.  When  wayfaring  in  France  as  a 
tourist  the  towers  of  a  chS,teau  seen  among  the  woods 
from  the  roadside,  or  a  prefecture  standing  in  its  park 
in  a  country  town,  or  the  modest  home  of  a  rural  priest 
beneath  the  shadow  of  a  church,  had  always  filled  me 
with  wondering  desire  to  know  what  manner  of  people 
dwelt  within  those  walls ;  so  having  read  and  imagined 
much  about  the  lives  they  led,  it  would  not  have  been 


INTRODUCTION 


surprising  if  some  disillusion  had  followed  my  first  entry 
into  this  novel  society.  Nothing  of  the  sort  occurred, 
and  the  memory  of  my  opening  journey  as  a  resident  in 
France  is  a  series  of  pleasing  pictures.  During  several 
previous  years  I  had  travelled  in  distant  English-speak- 
ing lands,  studying  various  phases  of  the  expansion  of 
our  race  in  our  own  admirable  Colonies,  and  in  the 
United  States;  but  the  strenuous  impressions  brought 
home  from  these  edifying  voyages  had  not  unfitted  me 
to  appreciate  more  restful  adventures  amid  an  older 
civilisation.  Even  now,  when  I  know  the  French  prov- 
inces as  few  foreigners  can  know  them,  the  familiar 
scenes  of  daily  life  which  meet  the  casual  view  give  me 
pleasurable  sensations  as  keen  as  when  I  was  a  passing 
stranger.  A  bishop  blessing  little  children  in  the  aisles 
of  his  cathedral,  a  group  of  white-coifed  peasant  women 
in  a  market-place,  or  a  red-legged  regiment  swinging 
through  a  village  to  the  strains  of  a  bugle-march  has 
now  for  me  not  merely  the  sentimental  or  picturesque 
interest  of  former  days.  I  know,  indeed,  that  the  lives 
of  many  of  these  people  are  neither  ideal  nor  idyllic, 
but  I  recognise  now  in  these  provincials,  with  all  their 
failings,  the  true  force  of  France  which  keeps  her  in 
the  front  rank  of  nations,  in  spite  of  the  follies,  gov- 
ernmental and  otherwise,  committed  in  her  beautiful 
capital. 

The  first  prolonged  halt  on  my  journey  of  1890  was 
made  at  Autun.  I  went  there  on  the  invitation  of 
Mgr.  Perraud,  the  learned  Academician,  who,  being  in 
intellect  and  in  character  an  ecclesiastic  superior  to 
those  whom  the  Republic  is  wont  to  honour  under  the 
provisions  of  the  Concordat,    was  made  to  wait  inordi- 


10  INTRODUCTION 


nately  for  his  Cardinal's  hat.  The  hours  I  spent  in  the 
old  palace  of  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy,  of  which  Talley- 
rand was  once  the  episcopal  occupant,  were  more  memo- 
rable because  of  the  presence  of  the  Bishop's  brother,  the 
late  Abb^  Charles  Perraud,  the  intimate  friend  of  Henri 
Perreyve,  who,  the  hope  of  the  Church  in  France,  did 
not  attain  even  the  early  age  at  which  Pascal  died. 
My  copy  of  his  correspondence  with  Charles  Perraud 
belonged  to  another  very  dissimilar  companion  of  those 
days  at  Autun.  Mr.  Hamerton  was  then  living  in  the 
Morvan,  in  the  rural  homestead  of  which  English  readers 
well  know  the  charm,  and  it  was  an  advantage  to  have 
his  judicious  counsel  at  the  outset  of  my  work.  Certain 
phases  of  life  in  France  he  knew  better  than  any  natives 
of  the  soil,  though  he  retained  his  English  characteristics 
most  remarkably  amid  domestic  surroundings  peculiarly 
French.  He  was  a  perfectly  unprejudiced  observer  of 
the  ways  of  the  nation  in  the  midst  of  which  he  lived, 
as  befitted  a  philosopher  of  original  gifts  and  elevated 
view. 

From  Autun  I  went  to  Le  Creuzot  to  stay  with 
M.  Schneider,  the  owner  of  the  great  iron-works  and 
ordnance  factory,  whose  father  was  president  of  the 
Corps  L^gislatif  under  Napoleon  III.  There  I  carefully 
studied  the  conditions  of  existence  in  a  mining  and 
industrial  centre  in  which  the  relations  of  capital  and 
labour  are  generally  harmonious,  examining  the  work- 
men's dwellings,  the  schools,  and  the  organisations  for 
the  encouragement  of  thrift.  My  next  visit  was  a  pleas- 
ant experience  of  a  very  different  order.  In  the  hill- 
country  of  the  Forez,  near  the  upper  Loire,  I  went  to  see 
the  Vicomte  de  Meaux,  a  cultivated  historian  who  was 


INTRODUCTION  11 


twice  a  minister  under  Marshal  MacMahon,  and  it  was  a 
happy  hazard  for  an  Englishman  that  in  the  first  rural 
chS,teau  to  which  he  was  invited  the  chatelaine  was  a 
daughter  of  M.  de  Montalembert,  whose  admiration  for 
England  was  such  that  the  judges  of  the  Second  Empire 
sentenced  him  to  imprisonment  for  his  suggestive  praises 
of  British  rule. 

My  next  stage  was  Lyons.  M.  Jules  Cambon,  since 
Governor-General  of  Algeria  and  now  Ambassador  at 
Washington,  was  then  Pr^fet  of  the  Rh6ne,  and  by  his 
obliging  kindness  I  was  enabled  not  only  to  study  the 
administrative  system  as  organised  in  the  second  prefec- 
ture of  France,  but  I  was  put  into  relations  with  many 
of  the  notables  of  the  great  provincial  capital  who  direct 
the  self-governing  institutions  of  which  the  Lyonnais 
are  proud.  The  civic  hospitals,  the  savings-banks,  the 
enterprises  for  housing  and  for  feeding  the  poor,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  religious  establishments,  some  of  which 
the  late  Cardinal  Foulon  permitted  me  to  visit,  make 
Lyons  one  of  the  most  interesting  places  in  Europe,  the 
practical  arts  being  perfected  by  a  population  which  con- 
tains contending  elements  of  mystical  fervour  and  of 
revolutionary  turbulence.  From  Lyons  I  visited  two 
other  important  towns.  At  Grenoble,  the  old  metropolis 
of  Dauphiny,  which  has  grown  into  a  modern  industrial 
city,  I  attended  the  sittings  of  the  Conseil-G^n^ral  and 
was  aided  in  my  inquiries  by  M.  Robert,  the  Pr^fet  of 
the  Isere;  and  at  St.  Etienne,  where  the  surroundings 
of  toil  are  less  picturesque,  I  first  made  acquaintance 
with  French  trade-unionists  and  socialists. 

On  my  way  to  the  eastern  frontier  I  stopped  at  Bourg- 
en-Bresse,  a  typical  agricultural  centre,  going  thence  to 


12  INTRODUCTION 


Besan9on,  Vesoul,  and  Epinal,  chief  towns  of  depart- 
ments which  are  important  both  for  strategic  reasons  and 
because  of  their  industrial  development  due  to  the  immi- 
gration from  the  annexed  provinces.  Thence  I  crossed 
the  Vosges  into  the  lost  territory,  and  made  an  excursion 
of  pathetic  interest,  the  Alsacians  whom  I  met  at  Stras- 
bourg, Mulhouse,  and  elsewhere  being  nearly  all  of  the 
class  passionately  devoted  to  France.  After  a  visit  to 
Belfort,  the  heroic  fragment  of  the  Haut  Rhin  saved 
from  Germany,  I  went  to  Nancy,  which,  unlike  most 
disenthroned  capitals,  has  preserved  a  sumptuous  air  of 
grandeur.  At  all  the  places  within  the  French  boundary 
I  had  ample  opportunity  of  studying  the  sentiments  of 
every  section  of  the  frontier  population,  in  visits  to 
republican  prefectures  and  to  royalist  chateaux,  and  in 
frequent  intercourse  with  soldiers  and  functionaries  as 
well  as  with  permanent  denizens  of  the  borderland. 
Before  returning  to  Paris  by  Domrdmy  and  Reims  I  saw 
two  former  Prime  Ministers  who  had  little  in  common 
except  their  Vosgean  origin  and  their  thankless  experi- 
ence of  a  statesman's  calling  in  France.  M.  Jules 
Ferry  lived  hard  by  the  frontier  at  St.  Di^,  his  birth- 
place, and  the  electors  of  his  native  city  had  just  ejected 
him  from  Parliament  in  return  for  his  services  ever  since 
the  creation  of  the  Chamber.  M.  Buffet,  spared  from 
such  vicissitude  by  being  an  irremovable  senator,  dis- 
played the  advantage  of  the  now  abrogated  system  of 
nomination.  Though  much  older  than  his  republican 
antagonist,  though  his  official  career  ended  when  that  of 
M.  Ferry  began,  and  though  unlike  him  he  had  not  the 
solace  of  knowing  that  since  his  fall  France  was  ruled 
by  his  political  friends,  M.  Buffet  seemed  to  take  a  more 


INTRODUCTION  13 


buoyant  view  of  life  than  did  his  neighbour.  The  vener- 
able leader  of  the  Reactionaries  knew  his  party  too  well 
to  have  any  illusions  about  its  future ;  but  for  a  student 
of  French  institutions  it  was  a  privilege  to  listen  to  one 
whose  long  public  career  began  as  a  Minister  in  1848, 
and  I  took  away  some  historical  lessons  of  value  from 
the  chateau  of  Ravenel. 

My  subsequent  journeyings  shall  be  more  briefly  sum- 
marised. After  passing  some  months  in  Paris  I  started 
again  in  1891,  returning  to  Lyons,  which  contains  mate- 
rial for  frequent  study  worthy  of  the  second  city  of 
France.  Thence  I  went  to  Marseilles,  and  stayed  long 
enough  to  get  a  certain  insight  into  the  life  of  the  com- 
posite population.  Crossing  to  Algeria,  during  a  long 
visit  I  was  able  to  examine  the  peculiar  system  of 
administration  followed  in  this  quasi-colonial  possession, 
and  also  the  more  practical  methods  of  Cardinal  Lavi- 
gerie's  P^res  Blancs.  I  travelled  as  far  as  the  frontier 
of  Tunis,  and  returned  to  France  by  way  of  Corsica, 
exploring  a  large  portion  of  the  island  which,  after  Great 
Britain,  has  had  more  influence  on  the  destinies  of 
modern  Europe  than  any  other  insular  fragment  of  that 
continent. 

After  a  brief  summer  season  in  Paris  we  set  out  for 
the  West,  visiting  the  cities  of  Le  Mans,  Angers,  and 
Vannes.  There  in  the  Morbihan  the  Comte  de  Mun 
met  us,  and  under  his  amiable  guidance  we  had  many 
glimpses  of  Breton  life  rarely  accorded  to  strangers. 
In  hospitable  chateaux  and  in  village  presbyteries,  at 
pardons  and  at  horse-fairs,  in  fishing  hamlets  and  in 
moorland  towns,  our  surroundings  made  it  hard  to  realise 
that  we  were  living  among  the  subjects  of  a  Republic, 


U  INTRODUCTION 


for  the  Encyclical  referring  to  that  state  of  things,  which 
the  next  year  dismayed  Catholic  and  Royalist  Brittany, 
was  not  yet  delivered  to  the  printer  of  the  Vatican. 

We  travelled  slowly  by  Nantes  and  La  Rochelle  to 
Bordeaux,  an  attractive  city  where*  a  genial  commerce 
promotes  proficiency  in  the  art  of  living,  and  from  the 
vine-country  passed  to  the  Landes,  a  sequestered  region, 
of  which  the  kindly  inhabitants  display  marked  local 
characteristic.  Then  several  Pyrenean  towns  were  vis- 
ited, including  Lourdes,  which  for  a  student  is  one  of 
the  most  interesting  places  in  Europe  a  century  after  the 
installation  of  the  cult  of  Reason  on  the  altar  of  Notre 
Dame.  We  advanced  into  Languedoc  as  far  as  Carcas- 
sonne, taking  away  pleasant  memories  of  home  life  in 
remote  chS,teaux,  of  which  the  inmates  disdain  the  dis- 
tant joys  of  Paris,  and  go  for  their  winter  season  to 
Toulouse.  We  had  already  halted  in  that  exuberant 
city,  so  turning  north  we  came  to  Limoges,  an  example 
of  how  in  France  the  prosperity  of  a  smoky  trade  does 
not  deface  the  landscape.  Then  we  drove  through 
George  Sand's  country,  lingering  in  many  a  forgotten 
town  and  village  in  the  Creuse  and  the  Indre  which  were 
household  words  fifty  years  ago,  and  so  we  came  to  the 
capital  of  the  Berry.  Apart  from  its  ecclesiastical  and 
industrial  features,  Bourges  presented  a  phenomenon 
which,  outside  Paris  and  away  from  the  Alpes  Maritimes 
and  from  certain  summer  resorts,  I  have  rarely  encoun- 
tered on  my  travels  in  France :  we  met  an  Englishman. 
It  is  true  he  had  for  his  singular  enterprise  the  excuse 
of  a  special  mission,  the  explorer  being  Sir  Frederick 
Leighton,  who  was  studying  cathedral  architecture  in 
the  preparation  of  an  academical  address. 


INTRODUCTION  15 


The  circumstances  of  my  life  now  made  prolonged 
journeys  somewhat  difficult,  so,  with  the  exception  of 
visits  to  Chartres  and  other  places  near  the  capital,  I 
remained  in  Paris  till  the  summer  of  1892,  when  it 
seemed  more  advantageous  to  choose  a  provincial  neigh- 
bourhood for  a  residence  of  some  months  than  to  be  per- 
petually roving.  Travelling,  indeed,  is  most  essential 
to  gain  a  general  view  of  a  country,  and  to  compare  the 
tendencies  and  sentiments  of  the  populations;  but  it  is 
also  necessary  to  live  quietly  among  the  people  in  order 
to  observe  at  leisure  their  daily  life.  Moreover,  for 
studying  the  uniform  institutions  of  France  one  locality 
serves  just  as  well  as  another.  The  centralised  adminis- 
tration and  the  educational  system,  the  clergy  and  the 
magistracy,  are  organised  on  identical  lines  in  Touraine 
and  in  Provence.  The  chief  town  of  a  department,  of 
an  arrondissement  or  of  a  canton,  or  a  simple  commune 
provides  precisely  the  same  material  for  study  in  Gascony 
as  in  Champagne, —  or  indeed  in  Algeria,  a  fact  which  I 
realised  during  my  first  visit  to  that  dependency  when 
attending  a  meeting  of  a  rural  municipal  council:  the 
formalities  of  the  proceedings,  the  nature  of  the  business, 
to  say  nothing  of  the  physiognomy  and  the  diction  of  the 
councillors,  gave  the  illusion  that  the  village  was  in  the 
vicinity  of  Marseilles  or  of  Cette  rather  than  of  a  colonial 
city  in  Africa. 

By  good  fortune  I  mentioned  my  idea  to  M.  Taine, 
and  with  his  aid  I  found  a  house  near  his  home  on  the 
Lake  of  Annecy.  Before  another  summer  came  the  great 
critic  and  philosopher  was  laid  to  rest  by  the  waterside, 
and  already  declining  health  had  limited  his  attractive 
powers   of   intercourse;   but  the  form  of  my  work  was 


16  INTRODUCTION 


considerably  influenced  by  his  conversations,  while  an 
agreeable  intimacy  with  his  family  gave  me  a  valuable 
insight  into  his  method  of  study.  After  this  memorable 
sojourn  of  three  months  in  the  Haute  Savoie  I  visited 
Lyons  for  the  third  time,  and  thence  descended  the  Rh8ne 
by  boat,  halting  at  Vienne,  Valence,  and  Avignon.  We 
stayed  for  some  time  at  Montpellier,  which,  with  its 
learned  Faculties,  has  the  air  of  a  University  town. 
During  this  southern  tour  of  exceptional  interest  we 
called  at  Rodez  and  Montauban,  and  had  some  varied 
experience  of  country-house  life  in  the  Aveyron  and  the 
Landes,  while  I  followed  my  usual  plan  of  seeing  people 
of  every  description,  from  reactionary  bishops  to  anti- 
clerical professors.  Returning  to  Paris  we  paid  some 
visits  in  the  chslteaux  near  the  capital,  thus  ending  the 
year  in  Seine-et-Oise  with  the  late  Due  de  Rohan.  If  I 
name  that  lamented  gentleman  of  the  old  school,  it  is  not 
merely  as  a  tribute  of  friendship,  but  because  he  was  in 
my  experience  the  last  survivor  of  his  class  who  had 
retained  a  savour  of  the  ancient  regime.  He  had  been 
brought  up  among  the  men  and  women  of  the  Emigration 
who  had  taken  part  in  the  diversions  of  the  Court  of 
Louis  XVI.,  and  who  imparted  to  the  children  of  the 
Restoration  a  lingering  trace  of  that  charm  of  manner 
whereof  the  eighteenth  century  had  the  secret. 

Of  the  places  visited  in  the  next  two  years  a  bare 
enumeration  must  suffice,  which  can  give  no  idea  of  the 
ever-varying  charm  of  travel  on  French  soil.  The  spring 
of  1893  we  spent  on  the  Mediterranean,  quitting  the 
tourist  track  and  seeing  many  unfamiliar  places.  We 
went  inland  by  way  of  Aix,  and  from  Aries  traversed 
the  Camargue,  exploring  the  Dead  Cities  of  the  Gulf  of 


INTRODUCTION  •  17 


Lyons,  in  one  of  which,  Aigues  Mortes,  modern  social 
questions  are  discussed  with  lively  emphasism.  At 
Nimes  I  saw  something  of  the  Protestants  who  have  their 
chief  seat  here:  thence  we  went  through  the  Cevennes 
to  Le  Puy,  and  through  Auvergne  to  Clermont  Ferrand. 
That  summer  we  passed  on  the  shores  of  the  Gironde, 
described  by  Michelet  in  La  Mer^  where  another  French 
Protestant  population  survives  in  the  Huguenot  settle- 
ments of  Saintonge,  and  here  I  witnessed  the  general 
elections.  Early  in  1894  we  revisited  Algeria,  and  on 
our  return  made  a  tour  in  Burgundy  before  going  to  the 
Chablais  for  the  summer.  The  shores  of  Ldman  are  not 
far  from  Annecy,  so  we  went  to  stay  in  the  home  of  M. 
Taine  at  Menthon;  and  there  in  his  library,  untouched 
since  he  left  it,  among  his  annotated  books,  I  was  able 
better  than  ever  to  realise  the  industry  and  research  with 
which  he  had  pursued  the  study  of  the  origins  of  modern 
France.  I  paid  a  fourth  visit  to  Lyons,  and  then  spent  a 
month  in  country  houses  in  the  Charollais,  in  an  interest- 
ing district  on  the  borders  of  a  great  mining  basin  and  of 
an  agricultural  country.  I  thus  visited  Paray-le-Monial, 
where  the  devout  inhabitants  accept  Avith  joy  the  decision 
of  the  Holy  See  that  it  is  not  an  article  of  faith  to  believe 
in  the  prodigies  of  Lourdes,  which  have  eclipsed  the 
more  venerable  shrine  of  Marie  Alacocque.  Thence  I 
went  to  Dijon  to  inspect  the  military  quarters  in  that 
city  of  valiant  renown  during  the  Prussian  invasion. 
We  remained  in  Paris  till  the  spring  of  1895,  when  we 
made  a  new  series  of  tours  in  the  Nivernais,  in  Touraine, 
and  in  Picardy. 

Paris  had  now  been  my  home  for  five  years  and  I  had 
steadily  pursued  my  task  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 


18  INTRODUCTION 


occupation,  but  I  was  not  quite  satisfied  with  its  pro- 
gress. From  each  provincial  journey  I  had  brought 
back  a  mass  of  information,  and  in  Paris  I  was  never 
idle,  but  the  writing  accomplished  there  displayed  an 
inharmonious  contrast  in  tone  to  the  studies  made  in  the 
tranquil  air  of  the  provinces.  A  foreigner  who  lives  in 
Paris,  and  who  frequents  the  dissimilar  circles  of  its 
society,  cannot  escape  the  agitating  influence  of  conflict- 
ing coteries.  Paris  still  contains  the  material  for  the 
most  attractive  society  in  the  world,  but  unhappily  so 
disorganised,  so  split  up  into  sections,  and  so  modified 
by  the  pleasure-seeking  cosmopolitan  element  that  so- 
cially the  brilliant  city  is  losing  its  character  of  a  great 
metropolis.  The  fashionable  class  has  no  relations  with 
the  governing  class,  and  the  men  of  genius,  wit,  and 
intellect  have  little  dealings  with  either.  Here  and 
there  the  borderland  between  the  various  groups  is 
indistinct,  but  generally  speaking,  fashion,  politics,  and 
culture  rarely  meet  on  common  ground.  If  a  stranger 
express  his  regret  at  this  state  of  things  he  is  told  that 
it  is  inevitable :  the  triflers  reprobate  the  morals  of  poli- 
ticians :  the  politicians  disparage  the  mental  faculties  of 
the  fashionable :  the  workers  and  thinkers  who,  in  spite 
of  the  others,  maintain  the  prestige  of  France,  more 
quietly  disdain  both  categories  which  between  them 
have  destroyed  the  great  glory  of  French  society,  the 
salon.  Moreover,  in  Paris  one  sees  too  many  news- 
papers, and  as  publicists  of  the  boulevards  are  wont  to 
revile  in  rude  language  their  fellow-countrymen  who  do 
not  agree  with  them,  the  enjoyment  of  an  unlicensed 
press  is  apt  to  distort  a  stranger's  ideas  of  the  people 
of  the  land. 


INTRODUCTION  19 


Paris,  again,  though  one  never  looks  at  a  newspaper  or 
sets  foot  in  society,  is  a  distracting  and  seductive  city, 
even  in  these  days  when  the  march  of  civilisation  is 
trampling  down  much  of  its  old  characteristic.  There 
is  no  place  on  the  globe  where  it  is  so  easy  to  imagine 
that  a  day  of  sauntering  has  been  fruitful  in  good  work. 
A  morning  spent  on  the  Quays  in  search  of  a  serious 
book,  an  afternoon  passed  in  a  studio  listening  to  theo- 
ries, may  familiarise  a  stranger  with  the  ways  of  the  land 
of  his  sojourn,  but  they  do  not  speed  him  in  the  progress 
of  un  travail  de  longue  haleine  —  to  use  an  expressive 
phrase  which  shows  that  the  French  understand  the 
conditions  of  successful  effort.  For  it  is  to  be  noted 
that  Paris  has  not  this  laxative  effect  on  the  Parisian 
inured  to  its  atmosphere.  A  felicitous  discourse  of  M. 
Renan's  had  for  its  text  the  query,  "  Peut-on  travailler 
en  province  ? "  but  though  he  took  eloquent  pains  to 
prove  to  his  audience  at  the  Sorbonne  that  inability  to 
perform  intellectual  work  in  the  provinces  was  a  fallacy 
born  of  the  centralising  heritage  of  the  Revolution,  he 
never  availed  himself,  save  at  holiday  times,  of  the  pro- 
vincial advantages  which  he  extolled,  and  I  do  not  think 
that  it  was  his  Hebrew  Chair  at  the  College  de  France 
which  bound  him  to  the  capital.  Among  his  surviving 
colleagues  at  the  Institute,  the  variety  of  French  genius 
has  never  been  more  signally  displayed  than  by  M. 
Ludovic  Halevy  and  M.  Paul  Leroy-Beaulieu,  and  both 
of  those  eminent  authors  have  assured  me  that  it  is  in 
Paris  that  their  powers  of  production  are  most  active. 
It  is  among  the  smiling  lawns  which  skirt  the  Bois  de 
Boulogne  that  the  grave  economist  proves  his  worthi- 
ness to  be  the  compatriot  of  Bastiat  and  the  kinsman 


20  INTRODUCTION 


of  Michel  Chevalier,  while  the  sombre  heights  of  Mont- 
martre  have  inspired  the  creator  of  Madame  Cardinal  to 
add  to  the  gaiety  of  nations ;  but  the  atmosphere  of  Paris 
equally  pervades  those  dissimilar  quarters. 

Though  M.  Halevy  once  courted  his  muse  in  the  sub- 
urban groves  of  St.  Germain,  I  can  testify  that  amid 
rural  scenes  he  ceased  to  be  a  writer,  for  he  was  my 
neighbour  for  two  pleasant  summers.  Not  being  a  Pari- 
sian I  was  beset  by  the  conviction  that  to  accomplish  my 
work  I  must  find  a  place  removed  from  influences  which 
disturbed  its  unremitting  pursuit,  and  we  found  it  in  the 
Brie  hard  by  the  domain  of  the  amiable  Academician.  It 
was  a  chateau  built  in  the  last  days  of  Louis  XIII.,  with 
all  the  architectural  grace  of  that  stately  epoch;  and  in 
the  next  century  it  acquired  some  literary  associations,  as 
its  woods  adjoined  those  of  Grandval,  so  the  guests  of 
Baron  d'Holbach  sometimes  came  that  way,  as  Diderot 
recorded  in  his  letters  to  Mile.  Voland.  It  was  thus 
almost  within  sight  of  the  capital,  so  uninterrupted  work 
was  possible  without  the  isolation  of  enforced  solitude. 
The  provincial  excursions  were  not  wholly  abandoned : 
once  we  went  to  Poitou  driving  through  the  Vendee  and 
the  Deux  Sevres,  and  another  time  we  visited  Normandy ; 
but  for  the  greater  part  of  two  years  I  rarely  left  my 
writing. 

These  volumes  were  not,  however,  finished  there,  for, 
compelled  to  winter  in  the  south,  I  went  to  Nice,  being 
the  first  foreigner  in  the  cognisance  of  the  Prefet  of  the 
Alpes  Maritimes,  who,  since  the  annexation,  had  chosen 
that  garish  cosmopolis  for  a  sojourn,  because  of  its  ad- 
ministrative attractions  as  a  Chef-lieu  de  Departement. 
I  had  my  reward  in  witnessing  some  interesting  phases 


INTRODUCTION  21 


of  French  local  government,  notably  when  that  accom- 
plished agent  of  the  Republic,  M.  Henry,  who  has  since 
been  promoted  to  be  its  Minister  at  Bukharest,  issued  a 
proclamation,  in  which,  citing  Napoleon's  Decree  of 
Messidor,  he  forbade  all  public  officials,  from  the  clergy 
to  the  magistracy,  to  attend  the  New  Year's  reception  of 
the  Mayor,  as  the  elect  of  popular  suffrage  had  affronted 
the  representative  of  centralised  authority.  It  was  a 
striking  corroboration  of  what  I  have  suggested  more 
than  once  in  the  following  pages,  that  under  every 
regime.  Republican  or  Monarchical,  autocratic  or  parlia- 
mentary, the  civic  life  of  the  nation  is  regulated  by  the 
durable  machinery  of  the  Napoleonic  settlement.  Since 
then  I  have  sought  other  practical  means  of  verifying 
the  contents  of  these  volumes  in  the  course  of  a  long 
driving  tour  through  the  Basses  Alpes,  the  Hautes  Alpes, 
and  the  Isere,  finally  completing  them  near  Chambery,  a 
city  of  exceptional  amenity,  almost  within  sight  of  Les 
Charmettes,  where  Rousseau  first  studied  philosophy  with 
consequences  which  changed  the  destinies  of  France. 

Ill 

It  was  M.  Taine  who  first  represented  to  me  the  mag- 
nitude of  my  task,  relating  his  own  experiences  with  his 
Origines  de  la  France  Contemporaine,  which,  conceived 
in  his  early  manhood,  were  still  unfinished  forty  years 
later.  Before  I  realised  the  nature  of  the  enterprise  my 
idea  was  to  live  in  Paris  for  a  year  or  so  in  the  intervals 
of  provincial  tours,  and  to  finish  the  work  in  England,  — 
a  plan  so  unpractical  for  the  study  of  a  complex  society 
with  its  deluding  surface  of  symmetrical  institutions  that 


22  INTRODUCTION 


one  short  summer  excursion  would  have  better  qualified 
me  for  it.  Mr.  Hamerton,  from  his  experience,  gave  me 
some  sound  advice  on  this  point.  "There  are  two  mo- 
ments," he  said,  "  for  writing :  one  when  the  writer 
knows  nothing  about  his  subject  (which  is  the  time 
often  chosen  by  travellers  for  composing  their  descrip- 
tive works),  and  the  other  when  he  knows  a  great  deal ; 
in  the  intermediate  stage,  if  he  is  acquiring  knowledge, 
its  acquisition  destroys  the  confidence  which  he  liad 
before  learning,  and  which  he  can  only  retrieve  after 
having  learned."  Not  that  a  stranger's  first  ideas  of  a 
country  are  to  be  despised,  if  only  he  will  not  parade 
them  as  a  definite  and  weighty  judgment.  A  new-comer 
is  often  struck  with  characteristics  which,  apparent  to  his 
superficial  view,  soon  evade  the  notice  of  the  most  observ- 
ant student  as  the  land  and  its  people  become  familiar  to 
him.  A  writer  is  wise,  therefore,  to  note  early  impres- 
sions as  they  indicate  the  points  on  which  his  countrymen 
need  information. 

There  is  another  objection  to  studying  in  a  limited 
period  a  nation  like  France,  with  its  conflicting  institu- 
tions and  its  profound  internal  divisions.  A  non-resident 
traveller  who  examines  a  strange  country  must  needs  be 
dependent  on  the  polite  inhabitants  who  display  to  him 
its  features.  He  cannot  help  being  affected  by  the  opin- 
ion of  his  guides ;  or  if  he  takes  an  independent  view 
he  feels  bound  to  modify  it  so  as  not  to  rudely  oppose 
that  of  his  hosts,  who  on  their  part  communicate,  with- 
out intentional  insincerity,  a  conventional  or  highly 
coloured  impression  not  quite  in  accordance  with  their 
own  belief.  The  impartial  wayfarer  who  frequents  antag- 
onistic circles  of  society,  especially  in  a  land  where  the 


INTRODUCTION  23 


breaches  between  them  are  impassable,  is  not  in  much 
better  case,  for  with  two  sets  of  friends  whose  prejudices 
he  wishes  to  respect,  he  sums  up  the  cases  of  rival  advo- 
cates with  judicial  inconclusiveness.  English  authors 
who  write  treatises  on  English-speaking  communities  are 
not  subject  to  this  disadvantage,  as  a  Briton  who  goes 
to  the  British  colonies  or  to  the  United  States  possesses 
on  landing,  in  instinct,  education,  and  language,  the 
equivalent  of  a  long  residence  in  a  foreign  country. 
There  are,  however,  certain  monographs  published  on 
the  continent  on  English  institutions,  which  though 
painstaking  and  interesting  are  too  clearly  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  opinions  of  the  authors'  English  friends 
to  be  valuable  as  works  of  reference  or  as  essays  in 
philosophy. 

A  writer  who  sets  himself  to  examine  a  foreign  country 
may  compare  himself  with  one  commissioned  to  investi- 
gate the  working  of  a  great  railway  company.  Such  an 
one,  if  he  wished  his  report  to  be  of  value,  would  not  be 
satisfied  with  a  few  picturesque  journeys  over  the  smooth- 
est portions  of  the  line  in  the  comfortable  saloon  of  the 
directors,  who  with  personal  attention  further  facilitated 
the  inquiry.  Still  less  would  he  content  himself  with 
the  opinions  of  discharged  officers  of  the  company,  expo- 
nents of  a  contrary  system  of  management,  or  of  malcon- 
tent shareholders  who  wished  to  change  the  directorate. 
He  would  assiduously  utilise  all  those  means  of  informa- 
tion, but  he  would  supplement  them  with  a  searching 
independent  inquiry.  He  would  explore  the  line  in  all 
directions,  not  disdaining  the  humblest  class  of  convey- 
ance or  the  slowest  trains :  he  would  elicit  from  his 
fellow-passengers  their  travelling  experiences  and  inter- 


24  INTRODUCTION 


rogate  the  servants  of  the  company ;  he  would  ascertain 
the  frequency  and  the  gravity  of  accidents,  the  standard 
of  punctuality  observed,  the  tariff  of  fares  and  of  freights, 
the  condition  of  the  rolling-stock  and  of  the  permanent- 
way,  the  wages  paid  to  workpeople,  taking  care  to  com- 
pare all  his  private  information  with  official  documents. 
Such  an  inquest  would  require  time,  patience,  and  dili- 
gence, yet  it  would  be  a  mere  holiday  task  by  the  side 
of  an  investigation  into  the  functions  and  working  of  the 
institutions  of  a  great  nation. 

If  I  had  confined  myself  to  a  few  instructive  tours, 
alternating  sojourns  in  anti-republican  chateaux  with 
visits  to  provincial  towns  to  see  the  authorities,  I  should 
have  got  some  vivid  impressions  of  contradictory  phases 
of  French  life,  auxiliary  to  my  sedentary  studies,  with- 
out acquiring  a  competent  knowledge  of  France.  An 
itinerant  in  a  strange  land,  whether  lodged  in  an  inn  or 
beneath  a  hospitable  roof,  has  no  real  experience  of  the 
working  of  its  institutions.  The  government  of  the 
country,  the  administrative,  judicial,  and  fiscal  systems, 
although  he  has  glimpses  of  their  machinery  and  hears 
much  of  their  advantages  or  inconveniences,  have  no 
practical  purport  for  him.  They  only  become  realities 
to  the  student  who  submits  himself  to  the  conditions  of 
existence  of  the  people  he  is  studying.  Then  as  a  house- 
holder, a  tax-payer,  or  if  needs  be,  as  a  litigant,  in  unre- 
stricted and  unfavoured  commerce  with  all  classes  of  the 
population,  he  can  turn  to  profit  the  daily  incidents  of 
life,  or  even  its  vexations.  As  for  the  latter,  the  wheels 
of  civic  existence  turn  smoothly  in  France  for  the  law- 
abiding  and  the  unagitated.  All  nations  have  their 
self-imposed    crosses    to    bear.      The    French   complain. 


INTRODUCTION  25 


with  some  reason  as  we  shall  see,  that  they  are  eaten 
up  by  functionaries,  but  the  scourge  is  not  so  devastat- 
ing or  so  palpably  useless  as  that  of  the  lawyers  who 
eat  us  up  in  England.  The  incidence  of  taxation 
oppresses  French  citizens,  but,  save  for  the  limited  class 
which  has  direct  dealings  with  the  municipal  octroi,  its 
payment  is  a  joy  compared  with  the  harassing  process 
which  tax-payers,  imperial  and  local,  have  to  endure  in 
the  United  Kingdom. 

IV 

While  the  business  of  everyday  life  thus  tends  to  give 
the  foreign  settler  a  favourable  impression  of  the  country, 
there  is  a  contrary  influence  abroad  in  France  to  which  a 
resident  is  more  exposed  than  a  passer-by.  The  esprit 
critique  which  made  the  French  Revolution  has  never 
ceased  to  be  active,  but  under  the  Third  Republic  it  has 
taken  the  form  of  pessimism,  acute  and  contagious,  affect- 
ing every  portion  of  the  nation,  excepting  that  which 
goes  resolutely  about  its  daily  work  without  troubling 
to  think  whether  France  is  ill  or  well  governed,  or  what 
is  the  precise  nature  of  her  prestige  among  the  powers 
of  Europe.  The  phenomenon  is  so  striking  that  it  is 
necessary  to  consider  its  causes,  as  those  adduced  do 
not  adequately  explain  the  affliction  of  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  sanguine  French  nation  with  a  malady  resem- 
bling that  which  their  wits  used  to  impute  to  the  splenetic 
denizens  of  our  fog-bound  island. 

France  is  not  the  only  country  stricken  with  pessimism 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  disease  now 
follows  in  the  trail  of  civilisation,  ravaging  communities 


26  INTRODUCTION 


irrespective  of  their  racial  origin  or  system  of  govern- 
ment. It  has  infected  individuals  ever  since  the  world 
began,  but  the  epidemic  form  in  which  we  know  it  is  so 
recent  that  its  name  was  not  recognised  as  a  French 
word  till  forty  years  after  the  Revolution.  To  judge 
from  what  has  occurred  since  that  neologism  was  moulded, 
increased  rapidity  of  communication  and  other  scientific 
improvements,  excepting  those  connected  with  the  heal- 
ing art,  will  not  increase  the  sura  of  human  happiness. 
Their  primary  effect  is  to  destroy  repose  and  to  agitate, 
thus  inducing  nervous  tension,  which  is  the  physical  cause 
of  most  phases  of  hypochondria.  France  has  not  had  to 
submit  to  such  neurotic  influences  more  than  other  lands, 
so  there  the  advantages  of  civilisation  are  not  the  special 
cause  of  the  inordinate  growth  of  pessimism.  Moreover, 
in  other  respects,  civilised  progress  has  had  less  depressing 
results  in  France  than  elsewhere.  We  do  not  find  there, 
for  instance,  any  counterpart  of  the  hopeless  misery  of  the 
poor  of  our  English  cities,  which  has  been  aggravated  to  a 
degree  unknown  in  other  communities  by  the  congestion 
of  population  owing  to  locomotive  facilities,  as  well  as  by 
the  substitution  of  machinery  for  manual  labour.  The 
social  question  is  serious  in  France,  but  it  does  not  present 
any  such  sombre  pictures  of  extreme  suffering  calculated 
to  deject  the  view  of  those  disposed  to  gloom.  Thus 
French  pessimism  cannot  be  regarded  as  merely  a  symptom 
of  the  universal  malady  of  the  age,  and  there  are  peculiar 
causes  which  give  to  the  nation  its  predisposition,  unnatu- 
ral to  its  temperament,  to  contract  inordinately  the  dolo- 
rous contagion. 

The  special  cause  of  pessimism  in  France  in  the  last 
generation  of  the  century  is  usually  said  to  be  the  disas- 


INTRODUCTION  27 


trous  issue  of  the  war  with  Prussia.  Witnesses  who  are 
old  enough  to  have  known  France  before  1870,  natives  as 
well  as  foreigners,  declare  that  the  immediate  effect  of  the 
German  victory  was  the  disappearance  of  certain  charming 
qualities  which  till  then  had  characterised  the  French 
nation.  The  gaiety,  the  genial  sociability,  the  politeness 
of  the  people,  which  made  their  capital  the  most  attractive 
collection  of  human  beings  in  Europe,  were  all  crushed  in 
the  fatal  nine  months  between  the  Battle  of  Worth  and 
the  Treaty  of  Frankfort.  France,  they  say,  came  out  of 
that  struggle  like  a  man  who  blithe,  expansive,  and  pros- 
perous is  smitten  with  an  illness  which  leaves  him  prema- 
turely old,  peevish,  and  suspicious,  as  well  as  damaged  in 
fortune  and  bereaved  in  his  affections.  Those  who  had 
not  reached  manhood  when  that  transformation  took  place 
can  judge  of  its  extent  only  from  oral  or  written  tradition  ; 
but  while  it  seems  certain  that  France  was  a  land  of 
greater  amenity  under  the  Second  Empire  than  under 
the  Third  Republic,  and  while  no  one  can  doubt  the  dis- 
tressing moral  effect  on  the  nation  of  defeat  and  loss  of 
territory,  a  close  study  of  the  people  and  their  history 
convinces  that  the  contrast  thus  depicted  is  too  indiscrimi- 
nate. As  for  the  simile  of  the  man  broken  with  sickness, 
nations  are  happier  than  mortals  in  being  able  perpetually 
to  renew  their  forces.  This  is  emphatically  true  of  a  race 
as  buoyant  as  the  French,  and  on  the  morrow  of  their 
reverses  they  left  on  record  manifestations  of  their  swift 
recuperative  power. 

The  literature  of  the  period  contains  little  trace  of  being 
the  production  of  a  people  in  mourning,  and  it  is  notably 
free  from  the  ill-conditioned  pessimism  which  blemishes, 
as  the  French  recognise  with  regret,  much  of  their  work 


28  INTRODUCTION 


in  the  third  decade  after  the  war.  The  drama  in  France 
is  the  reflection  of  the  feelings  and  tendencies  in  the  nation, 
and  if  we  examine  the  pieces  written  at  this  epoch  by 
Dumas  fils,  whom  the  highest  authorities  regard  as  an 
unerring  guide  in  this  respect,^  we  find  his  Frenchmen 
and  Frenchwomen  who  discussed  subtle  problems  on  the 
boards  of  the  Theatre  Frangais  after  the  loss  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  not  more  solemn  than  those  whom  he  put  on  the 
stage  of  the  Gyranase  in  the  light-hearted  days  of  the 
Second  Empire.  His  most  brilliant  successor,  M.  Pailleron, 
made  his  fame  with  a  play  written  in  the  early  years  of  the 
Republic,  and  the  life-like  creatures  who  people  Le  Monde 
oil  Von  s'ennuie,  whatever  their  vanities  or  their  charms, 
are  not  a  band  of  morose  cynics  like  the  miscreants,  politi- 
cal and  fashionable,  who  monopolise  the  scenes  of  French 
comedy  at  the  end  of  the  century.  In  fiction.  Octave 
Feuillet's  heroes  and  heroines  were  as  romantic  after 
Sedan  as  in  the  days  when  he  spent  the  intervals  of  com- 
posing in  the  gay  circle  at  Compi^gne  and  at  Fontaine- 
bleau;  but,  though  in  losing  his  Imperial  protectors  he 
had  more  personal  reason  for  gloom  than  perhaps  any 
other  writer,  his  creations  after  the  war  evinced  none  of 
the  dyspeptic  despondency  of  the  unwholesome  characters 
of  the  analytical  school,  who  have  now  taken  possession 
of  French  romance. 

If  imaginative  literature  reflects  the  particular  temper- 
ament of  the  writer  as  well  as  the  spirit  of  the  age,  there 
is  another  source  of  evidence  free  from  that  confusion. 
The  debates  of  the  National  Assembly  from  1871  to  1875 
are  entirely  dissimilar  in  tone  to  those  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  in  the  third  decade  of  the  Republic.  Under  the 
1  See  vol.  ii.  p.  291. 


INTRODUCTION  29 


presidencies  of  M.  Carnot  and  M.  Faure  scepticism  and 
violence  have  been  the  dominant  notes  of  parliamentary 
eloquence :  under  M.  Thiers  and  Marshal  MacMahon, 
though  party  strife  was  bitter,  the  language  of  the  depu- 
ties showed  that  while  there  was  keen  dissension  as  to 
who  should  be  entrusted  with  the  government  of  France 
all  men  were  inspired  with  a  dignified  hope  for  the  desti- 
nies of  their  country.  This  tone  is  apparent  even  in  the 
inquiry,  conducted  by  the  Assembly,  into  the  tragic  story 
of  the  National  Defence.  Personal  recrimination  was 
sometimes  heard,  for  a  dire  heritage  of  the  great  Revolu- 
tion is  the  inability  of  the  French  to  sink  internecine  dis- 
cord in  the  face  of  public  tribulation  ;  but  the  men  of  all 
professions  and  parties  who  deposed  to  the  causes  of  dis- 
aster were  hopeful  rather  than  downcast,  and  as  we  read 
their  testimony  we  say,  these  are  the  sons  of  a  great 
nation  who  know  how  to  profit  from  the  lessons  of  adver- 
sity. Yet  the  Prussian  was  still  encamped  within  their 
borders,  the  ravage  of  siege  and  of  battle  was  unrepaired, 
the  streets  were  black  with  mourners  for  those  who  had 
fallen  in  defeat,  and  France,  without  even  a  settled  gov- 
ernment, was  not  only  mutilated  but  isolated.  After  a 
quarter  of  a  century  of  prosperous  peace,  with  a  form  of 
government  so  undisputed  that  it  is  the  most  stable  of 
those  enjoyed  by  France  for  over  a  hundred  years,  in  the 
period  which  has  brought  her  into  close  amity  with 
another  great  power,  we  must  avoid  perusing  the  utter- 
ances of  her  public  men  in  Parliament  and  in  the  press,  if 
we  would  retain  unimpaired  our  belief  in  the  grandeur  of 
the  French. 

We  may  be  told  that  the  pessimism  of  the  century's  end 
is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  generation  maturing  in  it  got 


30  INTRODUCTION 


its  first  impressions  in  the  dark  days  of  defeat,  so  that  all 
those  born  or  adolescent  at  that  epoch  had  their  fancy 
tainted  with  images  of  gloom.  The  theory  might  be 
plausible  if  an  intemperate  cult  of  the  serious  were  a 
feature  of  modern  French  pessimism,  or  if  1870  were  the 
first  year  in  which  France  had  suffered  disaster.  There 
never  was  a  season  when  the  spirit  of  the  nation  was  mer- 
rier than  under  the  Restoration  after  the  invasions  which 
deprived  it  of  its  Revolutionary  spoils.  The  removal  of 
the  nightmare  of  war  and  carnage  with  which  Napoleon 
had  oppressed  France  was  enough  to  cause  a  reaction  of 
gaiety  in  the  first  years  of  relief;  but  as  time  went  on 
without  any  renewal  of  national  glories,  depression  did 
not  fall  upon  the  people.  Twenty-seven  years,  which  lie 
between  us  and  the  battle  of  Sedan,  form  a  large  span 
in  the  life  of  a  nation,  and  especially  of  modern  France. 
Only  twenty-seven  years  divide  1788  from  1815.  In  the 
former  year  Bonaparte  was  a  needy  subaltern  at  Auxonne 
in  the  service  of  Louis  XVI.,  anxious  for  his  mother 
struggling  to  support  her  children  at  Ajaccio ;  in  the 
latter  he  landed  at  St.  Helena,  having  in  the  interval 
made  an  Emperor  of  himself  and  kings  of  the  Corsican 
orphans,  having  changed  all  the  frontiers  of  Europe,  and, 
with  more  durable  effect,  having  reconstructed  France. 
The  like  space  of  time  which  followed  his  disappearance 
was  less  crowded  :  instead  of  nine  or  ten  changes  of  con- 
stitution or  regime  there  was  only  one,  the  Revolution  of 
July,  so  France  had  leisure  to  brood  over  the  ills  of  1815; 
but  the  middle  period  of  Louis  Philippe's  reign  was 
never  excelled  for  the  healthy  and  gladdening  tone  both 
of  literature  and  of  opinion.  The  national  thirst  for 
glory  was  not  extinct,  as  the  Orleanists  found  out  in  the 


INTRODUCTION  31 


ominous  enthusiasm  evoked  by  the  second  burial  of 
Napoleon.  Moreover,  despondency  and  discontent  ex- 
isted then  as  they  always  do ;  but  when  Alfred  de  Musset 
bemoaned  his  conception  between  two  battles,  and  sug- 
gested that  the  melancholy  of  his  age  bore  the  stamp  of 
the  agitating  events  which  had  surrounded  a  childhood 
whereof  Waterloo  was  the  earliest  tradition,  his  contem- 
poraries, not  so  afflicted,  ascribed  his  distemper  to  the 
influence,  moral  and  literary,  of  Byron,  rather  than  to  the 
political  visions  which  haunted  his  cradle. 

The  loss  of  Alsace-Lorraine,  an  integral  part  of  the  old 
realm,  no  doubt  weighed  more  heavily  on  French  hearts 
than  the  retrocession  of  the  spoils  of  war  after  the  fall  of 
Napoleon,  but  it  is  not  the  cause  of  the  pessimism  of 
to-day.  M.  Jules  Claretie,  when  visiting  the  conquerors 
of  the  lost  territory,  wrote,  "Twenty-seven  years  have 
passed,  and  our  domestic  brawls,  insults,  and  animosities 
have  thrust  out  of  sight  our  simple  and  patriotic  hopes  of 
regeneration  and  revenge."  The  observant  Academician 
is  an  ardent  Republican  who  tries  to  make  the  best  of  the 
regime,  so  his  reflections  which  the  sight  of  Berlin  in- 
spired are  valuable.  The  rancorous  discord  in  French 
public  life  is  a  persistent  source  of  the  malady  which  has 
a  more  depressing  effect  than  the  distant  memory  of  a 
sharp  grief ;  and  the  steady  growth  of  pessimism  is  a  sure 
sign  that  there  is  something  essentially  wrong  in  the 
government  of  the  country.  The  root  of  the  ill  is  to  be 
found  not  in  its  Republican  form,  though  the  democratic 
basis  of  that  regime  extends  the  area  of  the  evil,  but  in 
the  parliamentary  system. 

While  it  is  an  uncongenial  task  for  an  Englishman  to 
condemn  the   parliamentary  institutions  of   any  commu- 


32  INTRODUCTION 


nity,  the  day  is  past  when  an  inability  to  appreciate  them 
would  be  imputed  to  a  people  as  a  reproach.  Even  in 
the  heyday  of  superstitious  belief  in  the  oecumenical  util- 
ity of  British  institutions,  the  political  educator,  who 
later  was  adopted  in  that  capacity  by  the  nation  which 
invented  parliaments,  sounded  an  audacious  note  of 
scepticism.  '"I  go  to  a  land,'  said  Tancred,  ' that  has 
never  been  blessed  by  that  fatal  drollery  called  a  repre- 
sentative government,  though  Omniscience  once  deigned 
to  trace  out  the  polity  which  should  rule  it.'"  Mr. 
Disraeli,  when  he  thus  delivered  himself  in  the  Asiatic 
romance  which  he  studded  with  his  personal  opinions, 
was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  as  he  had  a 
profound  faith  in  his  future  domination  over  that  body, 
he  was  by  anticipation  ungrateful  for  the  fame  he  found 
there.  His  peculiar  genius  would  not  have  reached  so 
lofty  an  eminence  in  any  other  sphere.  He  was  not  an 
administrator,  never  once  as  a  minister  undertaking  the 
drudgery  of  a  departmental  headship ;  nor  is  it  easy  to 
fancy  him  in  holy  orders,  competing  for  the  chair  of  St. 
Augustine.  As  an  ambassador  he  might  have  shone, — 
but  at  an  earlier  epoch,  when  effulgence  was  encouraged 
in  embassies.  As  a  novelist  he  was  incomparable,  yet  he 
failed  to  touch  popular  fancy.  The  House  of  Commons 
was  his  destined  arena,  and  the  estimate  of  this  great 
Member  of  Parliament,  who  was  moreover  endowed  with 
the  cosmopolitan  instinct  of  his  race,  is  useful  to  recall, 
when  France,  having  made  unexampled  trial  of  parlia- 
mentary government,  has  found  it  to  be  in  the  words  of 
its  consummate  master  "a  fatal  drollery." 

Previous  French  experiments  in  representative  institu- 
tions were  always  too  short-lived,  being  abbreviated  by 


INTRODUCTION  33 


revolution,  and  were  founded  on  too  artificial  a  basis  to 
afford  material  for  judgment.  But  under  the  Third  Re- 
public they  have  been  tried  during  a  period  of  perfect 
peace  and  domestic  tranquillity  on  a  democratic  founda- 
tion, under  the  most  durable  regime  of  the  century,  which 
has  never  had  a  serious  rival ;  and  out  of  these  favouring 
circumstances  the  parliamentary  system  has  emerged 
irretrievably  discredited.  The  temperament  of  the  French 
people  is  not  the  sole  cause  of  its  failure.  A  fundamental 
obstacle  to  thwart  its  working  is  its  combination  with  a 
centralised  administration  constructed  to  be  manipulated 
by  one  strong  hand,  and  instead  of  modifying  the  defects 
of  centralisation,  parliamentary  government  aggravates 
them.  The  fatal  incompatibility  has  been  carefully 
studied  in  these  volumes,  and  one  only  of  its  results  need 
be  mentioned  here.  An  essential  feature  of  a  centralised 
bureaucracy  is  the  profusion  of  offices  held  directly  from 
the  State ;  and  the  French  have  found  out  that  whatever 
the  evil  of  vesting  their  patronage  in  a  strong  central 
power,  it  is  more  harmful  to  the  commonwealth  to  trans- 
fer it  to  the  elected  representatives  of  the  nation.  For, 
as  we  shall  see,  each  member  of  Parliament,  not  hostile  to 
the  Government,  thus  becomes  a  wholesale  dispenser  of 
places,  controlling  the  administrative  and  fiscal  services 
in  his  constituency,  and  supervising  the  promotion  of  the 
judges.  Moreover,  to  augment  his  popularity,  a  legislator 
likes  to  have  as  many  posts  as  possible  to  bestow  ;  so  the 
tendency  of  representative  government  is  to  effect  not 
economy  but  the  multiplication  of  state-paid  offices,  ruin- 
ing the  finances  of  the  country,  and  turning  the  industri- 
ous French  people  into  a  nation  of  needy  place-hunters. 
Under  previous  parliamentary  regimes  this  evil  was  not 


34  INTRODUCTION 


patent,  as  the  electorate  was  extremely  limited,  and  if 
every  voter  in  France  had  been  given  a  post  under  Louis 
Philippe  the  bureaucracy  would  not  have  been  unduly 
swollen ;  whereas  with  ten  million  constituents  encour- 
aged to  regard  their  members  in  this  light,  the  rich 
resources  of  the  land  are  strained,  and  citizens  are  taken 
away  from  callings  which  increase  the  national  riches,  are 
deterred  from  colonial  enterprise,  and  are  generally  di- 
verted from  ambitious  pursuits  which  elevate  the  standard 
of  a  nation. 

An  Englishman  who  observes  this  sad  state  of  things, 
and  the  depressing  effect  it  has  on  some  of  the  most 
enlightened  thinkers  in  France,  exclaims  :  "  But  why  not 
do  away  with  your  centralised  system,  and  give  parlia- 
mentary government  a  chance  ?  "  The  reply  is,  that  if 
the  Napoleonic  fabric  of  centralisation,  which  has  survived 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  the  century,  were  demolished,  it 
would  bring  down  with  it  every  institution  in  France 
with  havoc  more  ruinous  than  that  of  1789,  and  to  build 
another  structure,  another  Napoleon  would  be  needed. 
It  may  be  that  he  planned  his  reconstruction  on  wrong 
lines,  as  M.  Taine  objects,  and  instead  of  strengthening 
the  centralising  features  of  the  old  regime  he  would  have 
done  better  to  strew  the  land  with  autonomic  institutions. 
But  on  his  return  from  Egypt  in  1799,  ten  years  of  revo- 
lution had  made  anarchy  and  chaos  so  complete  that  his 
genius  alone  could  have  saved  the  integral  existence  of 
France  ;  and  when  mortals  are  endowed  with  superhuman 
power  on  rare  occasions  in  the  world's  history  they  are 
not  mild  doctrinaires,  nor  would  they  be  able  to  cope  with 
the  crises  which  produce  them  were  their  qualities  those 
which  befit  benign  constitutional  organisers.     It  is,  how- 


INTRODUCTION  35 


ever,  futile  to  dream  of  what  Napoleon  might  have  done, 
especially  as  subsequent  events  indicate  that  autonomic 
institutions  would  not  have  suited  the  French,  while  it  is 
certain  that  the  centralised  system  does  conform  to  their 
wants  and  ideas.     Proofs  of  this  fact  abound. 

In  the  first  place,  while  several  times  in  the  century  the 
French  have  overturned  dynasties  and  engaged  in  civil 
war,  when  the  fray  was  over  and  the  new  regime  set  up, 
though  the  Government  of  the  country  was  manned 
entirely  with  opponents  of  the  previous  dispensation,  a 
material  change  was  never  essayed  in  the  essential  fabric 
of  the  Napoleonic  construction.  Secondly,  though  trea- 
tises on  decentralisation  abound  in  France,  they  show  that 
the  boldest  practical  conceptions  of  reform  leave  the  cen- 
tralised system  untouched  from  our  English  point  of  view. 
They  call  to  mind  those  radical  schemes  for  re-organising 
our  public  offices  at  Whitehall,  which  new  ministers  with 
ingenuous  zeal  sometimes  promote :  three  superfluous 
clerks  are  made  to  retire  on  full  pay;  three  other  clerks 
have  their  salaries  raised  to  reward  their  labours  thus 
increased,  and  the  next  year  three  new  clerks  are  intro- 
duced to  complete  the  old  establishment.  On  a  gigantic 
scale,  such  are  the  lines  on  which  daring  decentralisers  in 
France  would  remodel  the  bureaucracy. 

In  the  third  place,  the  scant  interest  taken  by  French 
citizens  in  the  important  local  governing  bodies  which 
they  possess,  shows  that  the  majority  like  to  depend  on 
the  central  power  for  their  administration.  Here  and 
there  a  population,  as  at  Bordeaux,  is  inspired  with  an 
independent  municipal  sentiment,  and  in  other  localities, 
as  at  Marseilles,  the  presence  of  Socialists  or  other  politi- 
cians of   vivacious  manners  at  a  council   board   attracts 


36  INTRODUCTION 


attention  to  its  superficial  proceedings  :  but  the  undertak- 
ing of  projects  which  may  possibly  add  to  the  weal  of  the 
community  and  will  certainly  augment  its  taxation  is 
regarded  with  indifference.  While  writing  these  intro- 
ductory pages  I  attended  the  opening  session  of  the 
Conseil-General  in  a  provincial  capital.  Its  public 
spirit  had  been  roused  the  previous  week  by  a  state- visit 
of  the  President  of  the  Republic,  who  had  decorated  with 
the  national  Order  two  of  the  members  of  the  Council ; 
so  the  inaugural  addresses  of  the  Chairman  and  of  the  Pre- 
fet,  recording  the  honour  paid  to  the  departmental  assem- 
bly, contained  matter  of  more  special  interest  than  the 
usual  financial  exposition.  But  tax-payer  and  admiring 
fellow-citizen  alike  remained  unstirred.  Five  unofiicial 
spectators  alone  were  attracted  to  the  prefecture:  two  of 
them  were  reporters,  two  were  experts  employed  in  a  tech- 
nical matter,  and  the  uncompelled  audience  consisted  of 
one  member  of  the  public  who  was  a  stranger  to  the 
department  and  to  France. 

A  fourth  sign  of  the  suitability  of  the  centralised  sys- 
tem to  the  French  temperament  is  that  not  only  it  pro- 
vokes no  popular  opposition,  but  its  existence  is  approved 
by  almost  every  Frenchman  of  eminence  of  the  great  class 
which  takes  no  part  in  politics,  and  which  brings  the 
highest  credit  on  the  nation.  Philosophers  and  artists, 
men  of  science  and  men  of  business,  of  various  views  on 
social  and  ecclesiastical  questions,  are  generally  unani- 
mous in  holding  that  the  centralised  fabric  is  necessary  to 
the  existence  of  France  as  a  tranquil  country  in  which 
art,  letters,  research  or  riches  may  be  pursued.  Before 
coming  to  France,  my  native  prejudices  against  the  prin- 
ciple of  centralisation  had  been  modified  by  experience  at 


INTRODUCTION  37 


the  Local  Government  Board,  where  I  had  seen  how  salu- 
tary was  the  effect  of  a  centralised  control  over  elective 
authorities  when  exercised  by  impartial  officials  of  high 
character.  But  that  is  a  gentle  form  of  centralisation, 
not  incompatible  with  representative  government,  and  an 
Englishman  has  an  ingrained  difficulty  in  conceiving  a 
free  community  unblessed  by  parliamentary  institutions ; 
so  when  my  observation  persuaded  me  of  their  incompati- 
bility with  the  French  administrative  system,  I  was  per- 
petually pondering  if  it  were  possible  for  the  latter  to  be 
decentralised  so  as  to  work  healthily  under  Parliament. 

It  sometimes  happens,  in  all  branches  of  inquiry,  that 
a  casual  conversation  has  more  influence  on  the  final 
judgment  of  an  investigator  than  his  most  assiduous 
studies  and  reflections.  Constantly  revolving  this  prob- 
lem in  my  mind,  one  summer  evening  I  strolled  up 
from  the  Seine  to  Meudon  to  see  M.  Janssen  and  his 
famous  observatory.  Astronomers  are  no  longer  con- 
sulted, as  in  days  of  old,  on  questions  of  government, 
though,  if  it  be  true  that  certain  political  sciences  have 
been  relegated  to  the  planets,  we  shall  have  recourse 
again  to  their  open  vision  :  but  there  was  a  special 
reason  why  our  talk  turned  to  the  terrestrial  subject 
of  centralised  institutions.  I  had  first  met  M.  Janssen 
at  Lyons,  within  sight  of  the  summit  of  Mont  Blanc,  on 
which  he  has  placed  his  intrepid  post  of  observation, 
and  he  had  come  to  aid  a  movement,  favoured  in  that 
city,  towards  "University  Decentralisation."  The  idea, 
the  practical  progress  of  which  I  hope  to  deal  with  one 
day,  is  not  revolutionary,  its  aim  being  the  creation  in 
the  provinces  of  establishments  of  Superior  Education 
which  will  check  the  migration  of  the  youth  of  France 


38  INTRODUCTION 


to  Paris  ;  and  the  foundation  of  Universities  independent 
of  the  Ministry  of  Public  Instruction  is  not  contemplated. 
The  retention  of  this  jurisdiction  led  us  to  speak  of  the 
general  principle  of  centralisation,  and  the  venerable 
savant,  himself  a  decentraliser,  declared  with  strong 
emphasis  that  the  system  of  supervision  exercised  by 
the  capital  on  the  local  government  of  the  country  was 
the  essential  power  which  kept  France  together.  I 
recalled  that  on  the  occasion  when  he  came  to  Lyons, 
I  had  said  to  M.  Jules  Cambon,  then  Prefet  of  the 
Rhone,  and  now  an  Ambassador  of  the  Republic,  that 
amid  my  admiration  for  the  organisation  over  which  he 
presided,  the  thought  surged  up  that  if  a  British  civil- 
servant  of  his  eminence  were  sent  to  administer  Man- 
chester as  the  political  agent  of  the  Government  of  the 
Queen,  that  loyal  city  would  be  in  insurrection  in  a 
week.  But  I  also  remembered  to  have  seen  the  Prefet 
surrounded  by  the  leading  citizens  of  Lyons,  distin- 
guished men  who  devote  their  lives  to  the  local  insti- 
tutions of  the  second  town  of  France,  the  independent 
spirit  of  which  is  their  pride.  If  therefore  a  great 
civic  population,  composed  of  conflicting  elements,  accept 
complacently  the  governance  of  an  imposed  authority, 
it  is  clear  that  the  system  is  in  accordance  with  the 
sentiments  of  the  community.  As  we  descended  from 
Meudon  the  reflection  of  the  setting  sun  on  the  pano- 
rama of  Paris  gave  the  illusion  that  its  monuments  were 
in  flame,  and  called  to  mind  the  summer  night  of  1871, 
Avhen  the  terrified  dwellers  on  these  heiglits  looked  down 
upon  the  incendiary  work  of  apostles  of  local  autonomy, 
which  was  not  calculated  to  encourage  in  France  essays 
in  decentralised  government. 


INTRODUCTION 


The  combination  of  parliamentary  government  with 
centralisation  is  a  potent  cause  of  the  pessimism  of 
French  political  writers.  They  see  that  the  general 
result  is  unsatisfactory,  and  that  some  of  the  chief 
elements  of  the  governmental  system  are  immovable, 
manhood  suffrage  being  as  permanently  established  in 
France  as  the  centralised  administration.  Thus  the  only 
hope  of  an  improved  state  of  things  lies  in  the  prospect 
of  the  voice  of  the  nation  delegating  its  powers  to  an 
authoritative  hand  instead  of  to  parliamentary  repre- 
sentatives. But  apart  from  the  retrograde  character  of 
such  a  change,  which  would  sadden  doctrinaires,  no 
leader  capable  of  touching  popular  sympathies  has  shown 
the  faintest  sign  of  existence.  When  he  arises  he  may 
be  the  hon  tyran  of  M.  Kenan's  optimist  dreams;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  there  is  always  the  fear  of  a  shallow 
military  adventurer  being  disastrously  hailed  to  rescue 
the  land  from  parliamentary  anarchy.  Moreover,  the 
most  definite  prospect  of  ending  the  present  state  of 
things  rests  in  the  vague  future  which  lies  beyond  the 
issues  of  the  next  European  conflict;  and  war  is  so 
dreaded  by  the  French,  in  spite  of  their  martial  tem- 
perament, that  rather  than  contemplate  its  horrors  they 
would  submit  to  an  infinitely  worse  regime  than  the 
present,  to  the  defects  of  which  the  great  mass  of  the 
population  is  absolutely  indifferent. 

Thus  the  pessimism  which  is  now  prevalent  is  for  a 
paradoxical  reason  more  wide-spread  than  that  of  previous 
periods.  For  the  first  time  in  France  since  the  Encyclo- 
psedists  began  to  undermine  the  old  Monarchy,  no  one 
has  a  substitute  to  propose  for  the  existing  regime ; 
under  every  other  its  opponents  solaced  themselves  with 


40  INTRODUCTION 


the  thought  that  one  day  it  could  be  dispensed  with; 
and  though  this  idea  detracted  from  the  stability  of 
dynasties,  it  also  checked  the  demoralising  belief  that 
however  bad  things  were,  no  remedy  was  possible.  Un- 
der the  Restoration,  M.  Guizot's  letters  show  that  he 
was  utterly  discouraged  at  the  convergence  of  the  Royal 
Government  towards  the  principles  of  the  Holy  Alliance  : 
but  the  Liberals,  with  the  precedents  of  1688  always  be- 
fore them,  were  never  destitute  of  hope  that  they  would 
one  day  enjoy  a  statutory  monarchy  of  the  English  pat- 
tern. So  under  the  Second  Empire  Prevost-Paradol, 
long  before  he  ever  contemplated  service  under  Napo- 
leon III.  or  its  tragic  sequel,  criticised  the  situation 
with  such  bitter  raillery  that  his  friends  compared  his 
talent  to  that  of  Swift ;  but  the  men  of  that  time  who 
thought  themselves  oppressed  by  Imperial  rule  were  not 
hopeless.  Republics  in  France  had  hitherto  been  inter- 
vals of  turmoil  and  anarchy  between  a  revolution  and 
an  autocracy,  so  knowing  nothing  of  Republican  govern- 
ment as  a  state  of  existence  in  time  of  peace,  they 
invented  an  ideal  which  they  hoped  would  take  tangible 
form  after  the  Empire  had  passed  away. 

The  survivors  of  the  Opposition  of  that  day  attest 
that  the  youth  of  France,  under  the  so-called  tyranny  of 
Louis  Napoleon,  was  as  happy  and  as  sanguine  as  it  is 
now  cynical  or  dejected.  M.  Lavisse,  the  Academician, 
who  has  all  his  life  studied  the  rising  generation,  de- 
scribes the  gaiety  with  which  youthful  aspirants  after 
liberty  used  to  hiss  Sainte-Beuve  at  the  College  de 
France,  and  Edmond  About  at  the  Odeon,  because  they 
frequented  the  Court,  and  their  joy  when  they  received 
from   Belgium   a   contraband    copy   of    Len    Chdtiments, 


INTRODUCTION  41 


enclosed  in  a  plaster  bust  of  the  Emperor,  whose  head 
they  broke  to  the  music  of  Victor  Hugo's  fierce  stanzas.^ 
The  young  men  of  the  Empire  retained  their  hopefulness 
beyond  the  misfortunes  which  produced  the  Republic, 
and  it  is  only  in  its  third  decade  that  their  disillusion 
has  become  complete.  M.  Sarcey,  who  has  escaped  the 
malady  of  the  age  by  renouncing  politics,  except  as  a 
subject  for  reminiscence,  writing  of  an  old  class-mate, 
Dionys  Ordinaire,  who  was  one  of  Gambetta's  allies  in 
the  heroic  days  of  the  Second  Empire,  said,  "Republic 
was  for  him  a  word  of  magic  sound,  capable  of  ele- 
vating the  moral  sense  and  of  healing  all  the  ills  of 
humanity." 

Short  of  such  Utopian  ideals  the  Third  Republic  had 
every  chance  of  bringing  credit  on  Republican  institu- 
tions and  on  France  which  adopted  them.  The  prestige 
of  the  Third  Republic  would  have  been  the  great  justifi- 
cation of  the  French  Revolution,  but  the  era  in  which  its 
tradition  has  lost  its  glamour  is  that  in  which  France  has 
been  in  undisputed  enjoyment  of  the  form  of  government 
representing  the  principles  of  1792.  The  most  notable 
propagandist  of  pessimism  in  France  has  been  M.  Taine, 
and  the  chief  moral  result  of  his  last  great  work  is  the 
irretrievable  damage  inflicted  by  it  on  the  legend  of  the 
Revolution.  If,  however,  the  Republic  had  been  strik- 
ingly successful,  if  it  had  employed  in  its  service  the 
worthiest  sons  of  France,  and  encouraged  politicians  of 
decorous  example,  if  the  records  of  its  legislature  had 
been  free  from  scandal,  and  if  economical  finance  and  use- 
ful legislation  had  been  the  product  of  the  parliamentary 

^  Jeunesse  cCautrefois  et  jeunesse  d'aujourd'hui,  par  Ernest  Lavisse  de 
I'Acad^mie  Fran^aise. 


42  INTRODUCTION 


system,  the  illustrious  name  of  Taine  would  not  have 
availed  to  discredit  the  great  Revolution  which  the  Third 
Republic  claimed  peculiarly  to  personify.  It  is,  however, 
doubtful  if  in  that  case  he  would  have  denounced  it  so 
mercilessly.  His  criticisms  of  the  old  Monarchy  and  of 
the  Napoleonic  reconstruction  show  that  it  was  not  as  a 
partisan  of  any  regime  that  he  attacked  the  Revolution. 
But  he  lived,  the  attentive  observer  of  the  unfolding 
history  of  his  country,  for  twenty-two  years  after  the 
foundation  of  the  Republic,  and  instead  of  being  the  vin- 
dication of  the  Revolution,  it  justified  in  its  annals  the 
anti-Revolutionary  judgment  of  the  philosopher. 

At  the  other  end  of  the  moral  and  intellectual  scale 
there  is  a  most  dissimilar  pessimist  influence  ever  at  work 
in  France.  The  violent  press  ought  to  have  no  effect  on 
the  mind  of  the  impartial  student  of  French  institutions, 
but  he  has  to  take  into  consideration  its  wide-spread 
power  for  evil.  Every  day  throughout  France  are  dis- 
tributed tens  of  thousands  of  cheap  journals,  which,  ex- 
pressing every  shade  of  opinion  from  the  doctrine  of  the 
Commune  to  reactionary  clericalism,  have  one  feature  in 
common,  the  scurrilous  aspersion  of  public  men.  Some- 
times the  objects  of  their  fury  are  not  worthy  of  the  high 
position  to  which  the  hazards  of  an  ill-contrived  political 
system  have  raised  them  :  but  as  a  rule  the  defamatory 
clamour  has  little  relation  with  the  real  actions  or  char- 
acter of  the  persons  denounced.  At  all  events,  it  is 
demoralising  for  the  nation  that  those  who  read  the  news- 
papers in  town  and  country  should  daily  be  told  that  all 
Frenchmen  in  authority,  whether  politicians,  diploma- 
tists, judges,  or  ecclesiastics,  are  tainted  with  vice  or  even 
branded  with  crime.     The  evil  is  spreading,  as  there  are 


INTRODUCTION  43 


provincial  journals  which  outdo  the  most  abusive  prints 
of  the  boulevards  in  traducing  the  gallant  chiefs  of  the 
army. 

By  eschewing  the  loud-toned  organs  which  instruct  the 
multitude,  and  perusing  nothing  in  the  press  which  is  not 
signed  by  names  of  high  authority,  the  newspaper  reader 
in  France  does  not  escape  pessimistic  influence.  One  of 
the  ablest  of  French  political  writers  is  M.  Jules  Roche, 
a  former  minister  of  the  Republic.  Summing  up  a  series 
of  elaborate  studies  on  the  parliamentary  system  after 
twenty  years  of  undiluted  Republican  rule,  he  declares, 
"  We  are  the  worst  governed  country  in  the  world ;  or  I 
will  say,  so  as  to  hurt  no  one's  feelings,  one  of  the  very 
worst."  This  Member  of  Parliament  may  have  personal 
reasons  for  not  admiring  the  work  of  his  colleagues ;  but 
M.  Jules  Lemaitre  is  not  a  disillusionised  politician :  he 
has  attained  the  highest  honour  which  can  crown  a 
Frenchman's  career,  and  an  early  election  to  the  Academy 
ought  to  induce  a  cheerful  view  of  the  national  life,  at  all 
events  for  a  few  years.  But  he  asserts  that  France  is  in 
full  decadence,  and  is  going  to  its  doom  with  its  eyes 
open,  for  "never  was  a  wretched  nation  more  conscious 
of  the  ills  which  afflict  it."  He  also  says  that  "for 
twenty-seven  years  it  has  been  a  doubtful  pleasure  to  be 
a  Frenchman,"  so,  as  he  was  a  boy  at  the  time  of  the  war, 
he  has  never  known  since  he  came  to  man's  estate  the 
pride  of  nationality.  Both  these  writers  diffuse  their 
pessimism  in  a  widely  read  journal,^  attached  to  no  party, 
before  delivering  it  to  the  limited  public  which  buys 
volumes  of  essays ;  and  both  of  them,  I  venture  to  say, 
formulate  their  discontent  in  exaggerated  terms,  which 
1  Figaro :  April  13,  May  22,  Jiine  11,  1897. 


44  INTRODUCTION 


represent  the  prevalent  malady,  rather  than  an  accurate 
statement  of  facts. 

Although  in  this  work  I  have  freely  criticised  certain 
features  in  the  government  of  France,  far  from  thinking 
with  the  Republican  politician  that  his  country  is  "  the 
worst  governed  in  the  world,"  I  should  be  perplexed  to 
mention  three  nations  which  on  the  whole  are  better 
governed  than  France.  Nothing  which  strikes  the  eye 
of  the  itinerant  stranger  suggests  that  the  country  is  ill- 
governed,  and  he  often  takes  home  an  idea,  which  we  in 
England  have  put  into  aphoristic  form,  that  things  are 
managed  better  in  France  than  elsewhere.  Moreover,  on 
the  condition  of  never  looking  at  a  newspaper  or  men- 
tioning a  political  subject,  one  might  reside  for  years  in 
the  land  without  knowing  that  any  one  thought  it  was 
badly  governed.  No  doubt  in  the  daily  routine  of  life 
incidents  grievous  to  citizens  arise,  similar  to  those  which 
provoke  the  plaints  of  Englishmen  offended  by  the  ca- 
prices of  income-tax  assessors  or  the  whims  of  postal 
authorities :  but  petty  dolours  such  as  these  do  not 
depress  the  spirit  of  a  nation,  and  we  must  take  care  to 
discern  what  the  ex-minister  means  by  ill-government. 
His  strictures  refer  to  the  parliamentary  system,  which 
has  been  regulated  exclusively  by  his  political  friends  for 
twenty  years ;  while  the  well-organised  daily  life  of  the 
nation,  which  is  but  little  affected,  is  a  striking  sign  of 
the  excellence  of  Napoleon's  administrative  structure. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  pessimistic  effect  of 
a  system  of  government  which  animates  not  only  violent 
malcontents,  but  also  moderate  and  authoritative  writers 
to  disseminate  the  depressing  epidemic.  For  all  that,  the 
complaints  of  M.  Lemaitre,  like  those  of  the  ex-minister, 


INTRODUCTION  45 


are  much  too  sweeping;  for  no  Frenchman  ought  to 
despair,  when  he  contemplates  the  orderliness,  the  dili- 
gence, and  the  thrift  of  the  majority  of  the  nation.  The 
solid  qualities  of  the  people,  first  tested  by  the  payment 
to  the  Germans  of  the  colossal  war  indemnity,  have  reor- 
ganised the  army  and  produced  the  wealth  without  which 
an  alliance  with  another  military  power  in  need  of  loans 
would  have  been  vainly  sought  by  the  politicians.  Their 
own  most  tangible  production  has  been  unsound  finance, 
with  the  consequent  increase  of  the  burden  of  taxation ; 
and  the  indifference  of  a  provident  democracy  to  the 
prodigal  proceedings  of  its  chosen  representatives  is  a 
sign  of  the  unsuitability  of  the  regime  under  which  it 
lives  and  works,  rather  than  of  the  decadence  of  the 
nation.  The  curious  phenomenon  has  been  fully  dealt 
with  in  these  volumes,  and  since  they  were  written  it 
has  inspired  another  member  of  the  French  Academy 
with  some  of  his  most  incisive  observations  on  the  ways 
of  his  countrymen.  In  one  of  his  masterly  studies  of 
provincial  life,  M.  Anatole  France,  describing  how  the 
laborious  population  of  a  department  received  the  news 
of  the  arrest  of  one  of  its  members  of  Parliament  with 
the  same  impassibility  as  it  would  have  heard  of  his 
nomination  to  an  embassy,  remarks :  "  Public  opinion, 
which  was  a  reality  under  the  Monarchy  and  the  Empire, 
has  no  existence  in  our  time,  and  the  people  once  ardent 
and  generous  are  now  incapable  either  of  love  or  of 
hatred,  of  admiration  or  of  contempt.  "^ 

None  of  the  foregoing  appreciations,  it  is  to  be  noted, 
were  uttered  in  the  days  of  international  isolation.     They 
were  all  made  after  the  visit  of  the  Tsar  to  Paris,  when  a 
*  VOrme  du  Mail,  par  Anatole  l-'raiice  de  I'Acad^mie  Fran^aise. 


46  INTRODUCTION 


monarch,  for  the  first  time  since  France  ceased  to  have  one 
of  her  own,  entered  the  capital  in  state,  thus,  it  was  said, 
conferring  lustre  on  the  Republic,  and  restoring  with  its 
European  prestige  the  ancient  blitheness  of  the  nation. 
I  saw  the  Russian  sovereigns  pass  through  the  streets 
from  the  house  where  Talleyrand  lodged  another  Tsar  in 
1814,  and  it  was  a  suggestive  spectacle  to  watch  the 
elected  chief  of  the  parliamentary  Republic  pointing  out 
the  historical  site  to  his  august  guests,  the  great-great- 
grandchildren of  Alexander  I.  and  of  George  III. :  for  it 
was  within  these  walls  that  the  Autocrat  of  Russia,  being 
master  of  the  situation,  decreed  that  France  should  have 
a  constitution  on  the  model  of  that  presided  over  by  his 
ally  the  King  of  England,^  who  was  not  able  to  take  an 
active  part  in  the  transactions  which  followed  the  fall  of 
Napoleon.  Representative  government  might  have  been 
tried  in  France  without  the  intervention  of  the  enlight- 
ened despot  who  had  a  taste  for  political  experiments:  but 
as  it  was  actually  first  set  up  by  the  instrumentality  of  a 
Russian  Emperor,  it  would  be  an  act  of  justice  if  the 
friendship  of  his  descendant  could  lead  to  a  remedy  for 
some  of  the  ills  which  its  later  developments  have 
brought  on  the  French  nation. 

That  the  relations  of  France  with  Russia  have  not 
brightened  the  view  of  some  of  the  most  thoughtful 
critics  is  not  a  bad  sign  ;  for,  while  in  my  opinion  there  is 
no  ground  for  their  extreme  pessimism,  it  is  more  salutary 
for  the  country  that  its  sober  thinkers  should  have  escaped 
the  strange  doctrine  propagated  by  politicians  that  the 
friendship  of  Russia  has  given  France  a  higher  rank 
among  nations.  A  more  humiliating  theme  was  never 
1  The  circumstances  are  related  in  vol.  ii.  p.  264. 


INTRODUCTION  47 


uttered  in  the  name  of  patriotism.  France  has  never 
ceased  to  be  a  great  nation,  by  virtue  of  the  genius  of  its 
people,  irrespective  of  international  vicissitude  :  but  if 
that  people  ever  adopt  the  demoralising  idea  that  their 
national  prestige  depends  on  alien  protection,  it  will  take 
a  long  step  down  from  its  high  eminence.  But  no  alli- 
ance, however  gratifying  to  proper  patriotic  pride,  and  no 
military  success  ensuing  from  it,  not  even  though  it 
restore  Alsace  and  Lorraine  to  France,  will  bring  lasting 
satisfaction,  unless  a  form  of  government  be  established 
capable  of  working  well  with  the  permanent  institutions 
of  the  country.  These  are  the  Centralised  Administra- 
tion and  Manhood  Suffrage,  and  even  though  the  master 
whom  France  is  always  looking  for  arrive,  he  will  not 
enjoy  a  long  reign  unless  he  be  apt  to  combine  those 
elements. 

Amateurs  of  the  diversified  French  coinage  of  this 
century  are  familiar  with  a  series  of  gold  pieces  of  great 
beauty,  struck  when  it  was  young,  the  oldest  bearing  the 
revolutionary  date  An  XII,  and  tlie  most  modern  that 
of  three  years  later,  1807.  They  are  still  in  circulation, 
and  their  unworn  outlines  tell  of  ninety  years'  hoarding, 
and  betoken  the  national  virtue  of  thrift,  to  which 
France  largely  owes  its  stability,  while  several  genera- 
tions of  limners  of  the  Mint  have  invented  new  effigies 
to  distinguish  passing  dynasties.  On  these  coins  the 
image  and  superscription  are  worthy  of  note,  not  merely 
for  their  fresh  preservation  of  Ciesar's  finely  cut  profile, 
but  because  on  their  face  is  engraved  "  Napoleon  Em- 
pereur,"  and  on  the  reverse  "Republique  Frangaise." 
Even  before  the  term  Empire  was  made  official,  the  Re- 
public was  overlaid  with  Imperial  trappings,  and  we  all 


48  INTRODUCTION 


know  whither  the  pride  of  empire,  which  they  symbol- 
ised, took  the  great  reconstructor  of  France.  Neverthe- 
less the  legend  on  these  coins,  with  all  its  inconsistency, 
seems  to  indicate  the  form  of  government  which  France 
needs.  Frenchmen  who  look  with  admiring  eyes  to  the 
British  monarchy,  the  subjects  of  which  enjoy  more 
liberty  than  do  the  citizens  of  their  Republic,  sometimes 
define  our  regime  as  an  ideal  Republican  government 
with  a  sovereign  at  its  head.  The  description  is  not 
inapt;  but  France,  instead  of  trying  to  imitate  our  insti- 
tutions, unsuited  to  the  genius  or  tradition  of  her  race, 
should  organise  her  own,  under  an  appropriate  headship; 
and  thus  an  Emperor,  as  the  chief  of  a  Republic,  far 
from  being  an  anomaly,  might  under  favouring  circum- 
stances solve  the  unravelled  problem  of  the  century. 

The  word  Emperor  has  no  longer  the  unpopular  sound 
in  French  ears  of  the  years  succeeding  Sedan,  when  for 
a  season  the  memory  of  the  first  Napoleon  was  involved 
in  the  second  downfall  of  his  dynasty.  No  one  now 
regards  Louis  Napoleon  as  a  Tiberius  or  a  Nero;  he  is 
recognised  as  a  well-meaning  and  ambiguous  dreamer 
who  drifted  into  destruction,  carrying  with  him  the 
nation  which  he  had  previously  brought  to  great  pros- 
perity. One  pernicious  heritage  left  by  him  has  abun- 
dantly developed  under  the  Republic.  After  he  had 
let  Prussia,  uninterfered  with,  clear  the  way  at  Sadowa 
for  the  conquest  of  France,  and  while  he  was  devising 
the  empirical  remedy  of  a  Liberal  Empire  for  the  danger 
thus  assured,  his  Court  became  the  centre  of  influence  to 
turn  Paris  into  a  cosmopolitan  city  of  boisterous  luxury, 
which,  encouraged  within  the  palace,  demoralised  even 
the  army  of  France.     That  evil  no  longer  exists :  what- 


INTRODUCTION  49 


ever  is  open  to  criticism  now  in  the  nation,  the  army, 
in  spite  of  isolated  scandals,  is  exempt  from  the  ills 
which  deface  political  or  fashionable  society.  But  other- 
wise the  social  mischief  thus  sown  in  the  capital  has 
so  spread  that  critics  of  the  Empire  are  fain  to  confess 
that  even  its  frivolous  Court  had  restraining  qualities 
which  would  be  salutary  for  Parisian  license  under  the 
Republic. 

Never  had  a  society  such  an  opportunity  for  doing 
service  to  their  country  as  had  the  higher  circles  of 
Paris  after  the  war.  Even  after  the  politicians  of  their 
preference  had  thrown  away  their  chance  of  governing 
the  country,  when  the  Republic  was  founded  a  self- 
respecting  upper-class,  well  organised  and  vigilant,  might 
have  been  a  serious  factor  in  French  politics.  If  the 
Republic  had  been  governed  by  men  of  genius  or  in- 
tegrity, no  force  of  aristocratic  pretension  could  have 
impeded  its  popular  career  :  but  the  ephemeral  minis- 
tries of  the  Republic  have  not  been  so  composed,  and 
it  might  have  had  its  days  shortened  if  Paris  had  con- 
tained a  society  similar  to  that  frequented  by  the  Lib- 
eral Opposition  under  the  Restoration,  when  the  salon 
of  the  Duchesse  de  Broglie  had  perhaps  more  influence  on 
the  destinies  of  France  than  the  writings  of  her  mother, 
Mme.  de  Stael.  If  the  circumstances  are  not  analogous, 
the  bearers  of  names  once  famous  at  Court  or  on  battle- 
field and  once  associated  with  wit  and  intellect,  together 
with  other  possessors  of  wealth,  might  at  all  events  have 
so  shaped  the  corporate  existence  of  the  leisured  class  of 
a  great  capital  as  to  be  an  element  in  the  political  destiny 
of  France,  and  to  gain  the  respect  of  Europe. 

Unhappily,   the   well-born   and    the   wealthy   class   in 


60  INTRODUCTION 


Paris  has  since  the  war  pursued  a  line  of  conduct 
which  has  grieved  all  who  love  France,  or  who  recog- 
nise the  social  danger  of  unseemly  example  in  high 
places.  In  the  course  of  this  work  I  have  been  led 
to  mention  some  of  the  features  of  that  curious  society, 
but  in  doing  so  I  have  followed  the  rule,  which  has 
guided  me  in  dealing  with  every  phase  of  French  life, 
of  never  making  a  harsh  criticism  unless  my  own  im- 
pression were  corroborated  by  the  published  opinion  of 
a  respected  and  impartial  French  authority.  For  ex- 
ample, in  treating  of  this  subject  I  have  not  ventured 
to  express  myself  as  strongly  as  has  M.  Anatole  Leroy- 
Beaulieu  in  the  following  passage,  which,  as  it  contains 
some  significant  English  terms,  would  lose  its  force  in 
translation :  "  Les  hautes  classes  sont  inconsciemment  les 
grands  fauteurs  du  socialisme.  Leur  vie  est  une  predi- 
cation contre  la  societe.  La  frivolite  impertinente  de  la 
jeunesse  de  nos  salons,  I'oisivet^  ridiculement  affairee  de 
nos  sportsmen  et  de  nos  clubmen,  I'etalage  outrageant 
de  la  ddbauche  elegante,  quelles  legons  pour  le  peuple 
de  la  rue  ! "  ^  This  is  the  calm  judgment  of  a  distin- 
guished member  of  the  wealthy  class,  who  has  no  love 
for  the  parliamentary  Republic,  and  whose  philosophic 
writings,  which  have  given  him  a  high  place  in  Euro- 
pean letters,  are  free  from  all  exaggeration. 

M.  Anatole  Leroy-Beaulieu  deprecates  the  ways  of 
Parisian  society  because  of  its  dangerous  example :  but 
equally  eminent  Frenchmen,  less  interested  in  the  social 
question,  deplore  the  saddening  spectacle  on  other 
grounds,  and  it  is  one  of  the  causes  of  the  pessimism 

*  La  papaute,  le  socialisme  et  la  democratie,  par  Anatole  Leroy-Beau- 
lieu :  Membre  de  I'Institut. 


INTRODUCTION  61 


of  writers  like  the  gifted  Academicians  whom  I  have 
quoted.  It  is  indeed  mortifying  to  a  patriotic  French- 
man, who  by  his  talent  maintains  the  renown  of  his 
nation,  to  see  his  beloved  Paris,  with  all  its  past  tradi- 
tion and  present  capacity,  assuming  the  aspect  of  a 
cosmopolitan  city  of  pleasure,  and  becoming,  in  the  eyes 
of  strangers,  a  place  like  Nice  or  such  like  resort  of 
idlers,  where  the  foreign  element  leads  the  fashion,  and 
where  the  affairs  of  the  country  interest  no  one.  For 
the  most  conspicuous  Parisians,  whose  exploits  are  most 
widely  advertised,  proclaim  that,  apart  from  their  lighter 
relaxations,  their  gravest  ambition  is  to  vie  with  exotic 
foreigners  in  diversions  imported  from  England.  Thus 
accomplished  Frenchmen,  who  would  have  shone  in 
salons,  lament  that  Paris  is  becoming  an  international 
casino  :  a  sad  fate  for  the  brilliant  city,  in  which,  save  in 
the  darkest  hours  of  the  Revolution,  for  over  two  hundred 
years,  from  the  time  of  the  H6tel  Rambouillet  to  the  death 
of  M.  Thiers,  the  intelligent  commerce  of  refined  men 
and  women  had  a  distinct  influence  on  the  history  of 
France  and  on  its  place  in  the  world. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  all  French  people  of  high 
social  rank  are  given  up  to  frivolity.  Remote  country 
chateaux  are  often  the  scenes  of  blameless  and  simple 
lives,  while  in  Parisian  society  there  are  many  excellent 
women  who,  not  shunning  worldly  pastime,  are  devoted 
to  good  works.  Moreover,  even  among  the  men  there 
are  a  few  fine  patterns  of  conduct.  As  M.  de  Mun's  life 
is  passed  in  public,  he  may  without  impropriety  be  men- 
tioned as  an  example  of  what  a  Frenchman  of  the  upper 
classes  can  do  who  is  set  on  maintaining  the  tradition  of 
his  race.     I  do  not  speak  of  the  particular  subjects  which 


52  INTRODUCTION 


he  has  studied,  as  their  pursuit  needs  a  special  vocation. 
I  merely  refer  to  him  as  an  instance  of  a  well-born  French- 
man of  attractive  social  as  well  as  mental  gifts,  who, 
instead  of  squandering  them  on  the  idle  plea  that  the 
Republic  gives  no  scope  to  a  man  of  good  family,  has  so 
cultivated  all  his  powers  that  they  have  borne  him  to  a 
seat  in  the  French  Academy.  Another  member  of  that 
company,  whose  origin  exalted  him  above  his  countrymen, 
though  it  likewise  brought  exile  and  disability  upon  him, 
was  a  splendid  example  to  the  gentlemen  of  France.  The 
Due  d'Aumale  had  no  sympathy  with  the  lives  of  that 
monarchical  class  which  has  hopelessly  prejudiced  the 
dynastic  fortunes  of  his  kinsmen  ;  but  neither  the  folly 
of  Royalists,  nor  the  outrage  and  injury  inflicted  on  him 
by  Republican  rulers,  diverted  him  from  his  nobly  ap- 
pointed mission  to  illustrate  to  his  countrymen  the  duties 
devolving,  even  under  unfavourable  circumstances,  on  the 
possession  of  a  great  name  and  of  great  wealth. 

One  unfortunate  result  of  the  practices  of  "la  haute 
societe  Parisienne  "  is  to  extend  the  pessimism,  which  we 
have  been  considering,  to  certain  foreign  observers,  who 
have  nothing  in  common  with  the  pleasure-seeking  im- 
migrants from  the  East  and  the  West,  but  who,  at  the 
same  time,  have  no  opportunity  of  seeing  the  more  admi- 
rable phases  of  the  national  life.  The  most  pessimist  ap- 
preciations of  France  and  its  people  which  I  ever  heard 
from  lips  not  French  were  those  of  a  distinguished  Am- 
bassador to  the  Republic,  a  man  of  the  world  of  cosmo- 
politan tastes,  and  blessed  with  a  happy  disposition  for 
looking  at  the  bright  side  of  existence.  The  reason  was 
that  his  ideas  of  France  were  taken  from  the  society  of 
aristocratic  pretension,  from  the  politicians  of  democratic 


INTRODUCTION  63 


profession,  and  from  the  press.  His  experiences  in  many- 
lands  had  taught  him  that  an  intelligent  familiarity  with 
those  three  elements  in  a  nation  usually  afford  some  clue 
to  its  characteristics,  its  ethical  standard,  and  its  possible 
destiny.  To  draw  conclusions  from  such  objects  of  study 
in  France  seems  the  more  reasonable  because  of  their 
mutual  dissidence,  fashion  and  politics  being  completely 
antagonistic  to  one  another,  while  in  the  newspapers  the 
exponents  of  both  are  often  treated  with  contumely.  But 
general  principles  cannot  be  followed  in  appraising  the 
French,  and  the  elements  which  preserve  them  from  the 
fate  predicted  by  the  experienced  diplomatic  censor  are 
not  palpably  manifest  to  the  view  of  even  the  most  favored 
official  visitors  to  France. 

Apart  from  the  mass  of  the  people,  with  their  excel- 
lent qualities  of  stability  and  diligence,  there  are  three 
great  but  dissimilar  bodies  in  the  nation,  the  virtues  of 
which  counterbalance  the  ill  done  by  the  conspicuous 
classes  whose  words  and  deeds  fill  the  newspapers. 
These  are  the  Army,  the  University,  and  the  Clergy. 
The  virtues  fostered  by  them,  which  are  not  practised 
by  the  political  and  fashionable  classes,  nor  inculcated 
by  the  popular  press,  are  a  high  sense  of  duty  and  a 
respect  for  authority,  combined  with  unobtrusive  hard 
work  and  vigorous  abnegation.  The  entire  manhood  of 
the  nation  passes  through  the  ranks  of  the  army,  and 
grave  as  is  the  economical  aspect  of  compulsory  service 
which  takes  from  their  training  at  a  critical  period  the 
apprentices  in  every  art,  craft,  and  science,  since  Europe 
has  to  be  a  military  camp,  the  army  of  France  may  be 
regarded  as  a  national  institution  of  beneficial  influence. 
The  officers  usually  set  an  example  of  devotion  to  their 


64  INTRODUCTION 


duties,  avoiding  luxurious  pretension  even  in  the  rare 
cases  where  they  are  rich,  and  a  close  study  of  garrison 
life  has  helped  me  to  understand  the  general  affection 
in  which  the  French  soldier  is  held  whatever  his  grade. 
The  respect  for  the  uniform,  no  doubt,  is  greatly  due 
to  the  martial  instinct  of  which  few  Frenchmen  are  des- 
titute ;  but  for  the  practical  enjoyment  of  that  sentiment 
every  French  family  pays  in  kind,  and  as,  moreover, 
the  peasant  and  the  tradesman  have  a  fervid  horror  of 
war,  the  universal  popularity  of  the  army  speaks  well 
for  the  general  effect  of  military  discipline  on  the  nation. 
The  University  is  the  technical  term  for  the  great 
teaching  corporation  engaged  in  the  secondary  and  supe- 
rior education  of  the  country  under  the  Ministry  of 
Public  Instruction.  The  educational  system  has  become 
the  object  of  severe  criticism  in  France  at  the  end  of 
the  century,  when  every  Frenchman  wishes  to  incite  his 
neighbour  or  his  neighbour's  son  to  go  to  the  colonies, 
as  it  is  deemed  to  discourage  initiative  and  to  turn  out 
youths  who  are  fit  for  nothing  but  a  life  of  routine. 
Pending  the  controversy  on  the  need  of  educational  re- 
form, which  I  hope  before  long  to  deal  with,  the  teach- 
ers engaged  in  secondary  and  superior  education,  who 
are  classed  together  in  France  as  Professors,  form  a  body 
which  is  an  admirable  force  within  the  nation.  The 
devoted  men  who  compose  it  have  not  the  unattractive 
social  habits  of  the  professorial  class  in  some  continental 
countries,  being  often  as  refined  as  they  are  learned. 
Yet  unlike  our  prosperous  educators  they  are  slenderly 
paid,  and  there  are  no  pecuniary  prizes  whatever  in 
their  calling  for  even  those  who  attain  its  highest  posts. 
Their  sole  stimulant  is   thus   the  sense  of  duty  which 


INTRODUCTION  56 


guides  them  in  their  modest  but  momentous  functions, 
and  they  pursue  them  conscientiously,  rarely  seeking  for 
commendation  outside  their  academic  circle. 

The  third  beneficial  category  in  the  nation  is  the 
Clergy.  The  old  Conflict  between  the  Church  and  the 
University,  which  raged  throughout  the  Monarchy  of 
July  and  the  Second  Empire,  reached  its  bitterest  pitch 
when  a  professor,  M.  Paul  Bert,  was  chosen  as  the  ruth- 
less anti-clerical  instrument  of  the  Republic  ;  but  while 
the  discord  between  free  inquiry  and  dogmatic  belief  re- 
mains irreconcilable,  circumstances  have  led  the  priest- 
hood and  the  professoriate  to  regard  one  another  less 
pugnaciously.  In  one  of  the  life-like  provincial  sketches 
by  an  accomplished  Academician  ^  already  quoted,  a 
learned  member  of  the  Faculty  of  Letters  in  a  country 
town  and  the  Principal  of  the  Diocesan  Seminary  culti- 
vate a  curious  mutual  friendship,  in  the  course  of  which, 
while  renewing  their  eternal  controversies,  they  find  that, 
seeing  things  from  a  higher  plane  than  their  fellow- 
citizens  of  the  Republic,  they  have  a  bond  of  sympathy. 
Rare  though  such  intimacies  may  be  in  France  the 
apologue  shows  how  the  clergy  may  be  coupled  with 
their  old  antagonists,  the  lay  professors  of  higher  educa- 
tion, as  a  salutary  national  influence  under  the  Third 
Republic,  to  counteract  the  ill  example  and  debased  ideal 
of  those  whose  lives  ought  to  be  a  pattern  of  conduct. 
The  author  of  the  Vie  de  JSsua,  who  had  none  of  the 
injustice  of  an  apostate,  said  of  the  order  which  he  had 
quitted,  "I  have  never  known  any  but  good  priests ";2 
and  seven  years   of  constant    association  with    French 

1  V  Orme  du  Mail,  par  Anatole  France. 

2  Souvenirs  d^Enfance,  "  Saint  Nicholas  du  Chardonnet." 


56  INTRODUCTION 


ecclesiastics  of  every  rank  have  impressed  the  full  value 
of  this  testimony  upon  me,  who  also  regard  the  Catholic 
Church  objectively,  though  not  from  the  point  of  view  of 
M.  Renan.  My  studies  on  the  Church  in  France,  in  the 
work  which  will  follow  these  volumes,  will  fully  deal  with 
the  condition  and  character  of  the  clergy,  and  all  that 
need  be  said  of  them  here  is,  that  by  their  lives  and 
example  they  show  how  a  celibate  sacerdotal  caste  may  be 
an  advantage  in  a  modern  state.  One  of  the  objections 
to  the  celibacy  of  a  priesthood  is  that  it  withdraws  from 
the  nation  a  generative  force;  but  at  the  present  hour, 
when  the  frugal  caution  of  the  peasantry  is  depopulating 
France,  the  regions  where  a  normal  birth-rate  is  main- 
tained are  those  where  the  teaching  of  the  Church  is  most 
heeded.  The  clergy  represent  all  the  best  features  of  the 
French  peasantry  who  form  the  robust  backbone  of  the 
nation ;  for  it  is  to  be  noted  that  they  are  recruited  ex- 
clusively from  that  class  and  from  the  minor  bourgeoisie. 
The  descendants  of  the  nobility  which  monopolised  the 
rich  benefices  of  the  old  regime,  who,  in  the  intervals  of 
their  modern  diversions,  profess  loud  devotion  to  the 
Church,  successfully  discourage  their  sons  from  entering 
the  orders  of  the  secular  clergy,  now  that  it  is  ill-paid, 
laborious,  and  virtuous.  The  parish  priests  of  France, 
than  whom  there  is  not  a  more  exemplary  body  of  men  in 
any  land,  illustrate  the  better  qualities,  refined  by  dis- 
cipline, of  those  great  categories  of  the  people  which  con- 
stitute the  real  force  of  the  nation. 

In  these  volumes  we  shall  not  see  much  of  the  more 
excellent  elements  in  the  community,  nor  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  people  of  France  whose  silent,  sober  energy 
makes  up  for  the  errors  of  its  conspicuous  classes.     It  is 


INTRODUCTION  67 


particularly  with  the  politicians  we  shall  have  to  do ;  and 
while  writing  this  work  amid  the  calm  which  is  the  gen- 
eral characteristic  of  life  in  France,  I  have  often  recalled 
the  words  of  one  of  those  old  Republicans  whose  eloquence 
and  moderation  raised  the  level  of  debate  in  the  National 
Assembly,  and  helped  to  found  the  Third  Republic  which 
their  respectable  school  was  not  permitted  to  govern.  M. 
Laboulaye  said,  "  We  present  the  spectacle  of  a  tranquil 
people  with  agitated  legislators."  ^  This  was  the  experi- 
ence of  a  veteran,  who  had  seen  men  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, and  who  had  himself  witnessed  most  of  the  political 
vicissitudes  of  the  century,  even  before  the  creation  of  the 
Parliamentary  Constitution  of  1875,  which  was  to  enhance 
the  truth  of  his  aphorism. 

The  place  of  which  I  was  the  tenant  in  the  Brie  was  an 
old  ecclesiastical  fief;  so  by  a  usage  which  suggests  that 
France  was  not  entirely  renovated  at  the  Revolution,  we 
had,  when  Holy  Cross  Day  came  round,  to  give  up  to  the 
village  fete  our  rights  over  a  green  at  the  gates  of  the 
chateau.  Thus  my  neighbour  for  several  weeks  each 
year  was  a  philosopher  who  was  the  owner  of  a  set  of 
swings  for  the  use  of  infants.  He  was  a  Parisian  glove- 
maker,  and  as  his  trade  was  slack  in  the  summer,  he  took 
his  vacation  in  making  the  rounds  of  the  rural  fairs  of 
the  lie  de  France.  Born  under  Louis  Philippe  he  had 
seen  a  few  revolutions  and  regimes,  but  had  never  taken 
any  part  in  politics,  though  he  had  lived  all  his  life  on 
the  turbulent  northern  heights  of  Paris,  where  the  insur- 
rection of  the  Commune  broke  out  in  1871.  He  had 
never  been  Orleanist,  Imperialist,  or  Republican,  so  he 
assured  me ;  and  the  only  indirect  way  in  which  he  had 
1  Assembl^e  Nationalc :  Stance  du  28  Janvier,  1875. 


68  INTRODUCTION 


ever  been  connected  with  any  political  movement  was 
after  the  Commune,  when,  as  a  fireman,  he  helped  to 
quench  the  flame  of  the  buildings  set  alight  by  the  politi- 
cians. The  experience  of  this  sage  is  that  of  the  great 
bulk  of  the  inhabitants  of  France;  they  toil  at  their  call- 
ing so  long  as  work  is  to  be  done;  they  take  their  holi- 
days happily,  yet  thriftily;  and  their  sole  participation  in 
the  politics  of  the  nation  is  that  their  energy  supplies  the 
remedy  for  the  damage  done  to  France  by  political  incen- 
diaries of  various  denominations. 

In  a  treatise  dealing  with  questions  of  government  the 
existence  of  worthy  citizens  like  this  journeyman  of 
Montmartre  can  only  incidentally  be  noticed;  but  in 
studying  the  political  institutions  of  France  it  must 
always  be  remembered  that,  however  unsatisfactory  a 
spectacle  the  conduct  of  public  affairs  may  present,  the 
land  contains  several  millions  of  worthy  people  of  various 
classes  engaged  in  the  tillage  of  the  soil,  in  crafts  of  skill 
and  in  commerce,  as  well  as  in  intellectual  pursuits,  who 
are  working,  most  of  them  unconsciously,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  community;  and,  moreover,  such  lives  abound  not 
merely  in  the  silence  of  the  fields  and  vineyards,  or  amid 
the  placid  murmur  of  country  towns,  for  Paris,  the  nursery 
of  revolution,  the  playground  of  frivolity,  the  theatre  of 
political  adventure,  is  also  a  brilliant  centre  of  intellect 
and  one  of  the  great  workshops  of  the  world. 


V 

The  study  of  problems  and  systems  of  government  is, 
even  when  inconclusive  or  perplexing,  so  interesting  to 
mankind  that  a  work  which  treats  of  those  of  a  nation 


INTRODUCTION  59 


whose  political  experiments  have  convulsed  the  world 
need  not  profess  to  have  any  other  object  beyond  their 
historical  and  philosophical  consideration.  This  would 
seem  to  be  obvious  did  not  certain  writers  on  the  institu- 
tions of  lands  not  their  own  conceive  themselves,  as  the 
result  of  their  brief  voyages  of  discovery,  accredited  with 
an  international  mission.  "If,"  say  in  substance  these 
modest  optimists,  "in  revealing  the  inhabitants  of  one 
great  country  to  another  we  have  helped  to  clear  away 
misunderstandings  which  result  from  ignorance,  and  if 
we  have  thus  lessened  the  danger  of  hostilities  between 
two  enlightened  peoples,  we  shall  be  sufficiently  re- 
warded." The  ingenuous  idea  of  two  nations  learning 
to  love  one  another  out  of  a  manual  would  not  need 
attention  were  it  nurtured  only  by  sanguine  authors ;  but 
for  the  purpose  of  cultivating  a  similar  theory,  societies 
have  actually  been  formed.  One  of  them  tells  the  public 
that  a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  each  other's  language, 
social  customs,  and  political  institutions  would  lessen 
the  danger  of  conflict  between  England  and  France.  If 
there  were  any  fear  of  this  amiable  delusion  becoming 
current  it  might  be  dangerous,  as  it  belongs  to  the  same 
category  as  that  cherished  by  the  estimable  Quakers  who 
surprised  Nicholas  I.  with  a  visit  on  the  eve  of  the 
Crimean  War.  It  may,  however,  be  useful  to  point  out 
that  there  is  no  justification  in  history  for  the  propaga- 
tion of  this  idea,  and  that  there  is  no  modern  instance 
of  a  war  between  two  countries  being  delayed  for  a  day 
because  their  inhabitants  were  familiar  with  each  other's 
way  of  life  or  of  government. 

On  the  contrary,  since  the  Crimean  expedition,  which 
prophets  said  was  to  be  the  last  "guerre  de  chancellerie," 


60  INTRODUCTION 


the  last  conflict  in  which  civilised  peoples  were  to  be 
engaged  without  mutual  animosity,  simply  at  the  bidding 
of  their  rulers,  most  of  the  wars  in  which  Christian 
nations  have  contended,  have  been  between  combatants 
who  had  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  one  another's 
language,  institutions,  and  social  customs.  The  most 
deadly  and  prolonged  conflict  of  the  second  half  of  the 
century  was  that  between  the  Northern  and  Southern 
States  of  America,  the  inhabitants  of  which  were  mutu- 
ally possessed  of  all  the  knowledge  which  in  the  future 
is  to  make  wars  cease.  If,  however,  civil  war  may  not 
be  reckoned,  while  it  was  going  on,  Prussia,  aided  by 
Austria,  attacked  Denmark  for  the  very  reason  that  part 
of  the  Danish  population  was  so  familiar  with  German 
institutions  that  it  was  deemed  fit  to  make  it  enter  the 
German  Confederacy.  Two  years  later,  the  victors  in 
that  fray  having  quarrelled  over  the  spoil,  the  peoples  of 
North  and  South  Germany,  whose  common  language  was 
the  basis  of  their  intimacy  with  the  social  and  public 
conditions  of  one  another's  states,  fell  to  blows,  and 
ended  their  struggle  on  the  field  of  Sadowa,  the  most 
decisive  battle  of  the  century  since  Waterloo. 

If  we  regard  the  relations  of  powers  which  have  not 
broken  the  peace,  we  observe  similar  phenomena.  Since 
the  month  of  June,  1815,  the  period  of  the  century  in 
which  England  and  France  came  most  perilously  near  an 
appeal  to  arms  was  not  when  the  colonels  of  the  Second 
Empire  —  their  martial  appetites  whetted  by  the  Italian 
campaign  —  threatened  us  with  invasion,  nor  when  Re- 
publican love  for  Russian  autocracy  has  induced  attacks 
of  Anglophobia.  It  was  under  the  Monarchy  modelled 
on   the   English   pattern,   when  the  foreign   affairs   of 


INTRODUCTION  61 


France  were  directed  by  the  most  enthusiastic  and  well- 
informed  admirer  of  English  institutions  the  world  ever 
saw.  M.  Guizot,  the  idolater  of  the  British  Constitu- 
tion, the  profound  expositor  of  our  national  history,  the 
intimate  correspondent  of  British  statesmen,  was  during 
his  powerful  ministry  again  and  again  on  the  verge  of  a 
rupture  of  diplomatic  intercourse  with  Great  Britain. 
His  friendship  with  Lord  Aberdeen  may  possibly  have 
helped  to  ward  off  war  in  connection  with  the  Pritchard 
Affair  in  1844;  but  when  Lord  Palmerston  came  to  the 
Foreign  Office,  it  was  M.  Guizot  with  his  policy  in  the 
Spanish  Marriages  who  so  embittered  our  mutual  rela- 
tions that  Europe  witnessed  the  unseemly  spectacle  of 
the  British  Ambassador  in  Paris  publicly  bandying  insults 
with  the  Minister  of  France  :  while  it  was  M.  Thiers,  with 
no  knowledge  of  our  people  and  their  institutions,  except- 
ing such  as  was  included  in  his  legendary  omniscience, 
who  aimed  at  conciliating  England. 

At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  same  phe- 
nomenon is  apparent;  and  on  the  face  of  the  globe  there 
is  not  a  single  instance  of  two  nations  which  have  a 
cordial  feeling  for  one  another  due  to  their  intimate  ac- 
quaintance. The  citizens  of  the  United  States  are  more 
conversant  with  our  language,  institutions,  and  social  life 
than  any  other  foreign  people,  yet  we  must  fain  recognise 
that  their  collective  love  for  us  is  less  evident  than  that 
of  the  Italians,  whose  knowledge  of  us  is  shadowy  and 
traditional.  Moreover,  the  real  strength  of  the  basis  of 
the  Fi"anco-Russian  alliance  is  the  complete  ignorance 
which  the  two  contracting  nations  have  of  one  another, 
excepting  the  fraction  of  the  Russian  upper-class  which 
cultivates  the  lighter  products  of  the  French  language. 


02  INTRODUCTION 


While  forced  to  recognise  this  deplorable  truth,  I  con- 
sider that  a  war  between  England  and  France  would  be 
the  greatest  misfortune  which  could  afflict  the  human 
race,  and  that  scarcely  any  sacrifice,  consistent  with 
national  honour,  would  be  too  great  to  effect  the  union 
of  our  two  nations  in  the  field,  if  we  are  fated  to  take 
part  in  the  next  European  conflict.  We  have  arrived  at 
a  stage  in  the  history  of  the  two  countries  which  differs 
from  any  other  which  England  and  France  have  reached 
since  they  became  nations.  For  the  first  time  since  the 
Norman  Conquest  three  generations  have  gone  by  with- 
out the  armies  of  England  and  of  France  meeting  in 
battle  array.  The  last  of  the  veterans  of  Toulouse  and 
of  Waterloo  have  passed  away,  and  it  seems  certain  that, 
for  the  first  time  since  the  invention  of  gunpowder,  there 
is  no  man  living  who  has  fired  a  shot  in  warfare  between 
the  French  and  English  nations. 

There  were  bowmen  of  Poitiers  who  lived  to  hear  of 
their  sons  wielding  the  firelock  at  Agincourt,  when 
already  Joan  of  Arc  was  listening  at  Domr^my  to  legends 
of  English  aggression.  After  she  had  fulfilled  her  des- 
tiny in  withstanding  the  power  of  England,  rarely  a 
decade  passed  without  renewal  of  Anglo-French  hostili- 
ties, till  the  comparative  peace  maintained  by  the  first 
Tudor  monarchs.  Yet  even  in  that  amicable  period  there 
were  three  English  invasions  of  France  in  half  a  century. 
Then  followed  the  loss  of  Calais,  Elizabeth's  armed  inter- 
ventions on  behalf  of  the  Huguenots,  and  the  expedition 
to  La  Rochelle,  all  within  seventy  years.  When  England 
ceased  to  be  ruled  by  a  king,  and  France  was  governed 
by  a  foreign  priest,  Cromwell  and  Mazarin  agreed  to 
keep  the  peace  for  a  short  season ;  but  all  the  love  of 


INTRODUCTION  63 


Charles  II.  for  Louis  XIV.  could  not  prevent  their  two 
nd.tions  coming  to  blows,  and  in  1666  we  were  actually  at 
war  with  France.  The  military  inaction  forced  on  the 
English  by  the  last  of  the  Stuart  line  ceased,  after  the 
flight  of  James  II.,  with  the  French  invasion  of  Ireland, 
followed  forthwith  by  the  sea-fight  of  La  Hogue.  Thence 
Blenheim  was  only  a  dozen  years  distant,  and  there  were 
young  soldiers  of  Marlborough  and  of  Villars  at  Mal- 
plaquet  who  fought  as  veterans  at  Fontenoy.  Only 
seventy  years  then  remained  to  Waterloo,  a  blood-stained 
period  as  crowded  with  French  and  British  encounters 
as  that  of  the  Hundred  Years'  War  with  which  this 
recapitulation  began. 

During  all  the  ages  that  the  English  tongue  has 
existed,  and  during  the  long  evolution  of  the  language 
of  France,  from  the  Langue  d'Oil,  in  which  Froissart 
told  the  tale  of  Cr^9y,  to  the  modern  French  in  which 
Victor  Hugo  described  the  struggle  at  Mont  Saint  Jean, 
the  generation  of  writers  now  growing  gray  is  the  first 
which  has  had  no  opportunity  to  supply  contemporary 
chroniclers  of  French  and  English  mutual  slaughter.  In 
the  lapse  of  all  those  centuries  there  was  never  an  epoch 
till  the  present  in  which  old  campaigners  of  both  nations 
could  not  show  their  scars,  made  by  French  and  English 
steel,  to  inspire  their  sons  to  renew  the  perennial  feud  ; 
and  for  the  first  time  the  manhood  of  the  two  peoples 
have  never  seen  mourning  garb  worn  by  their  women  as  a 
sign  that  there  were  precious  lives  to  be  avenged  in  the 
next  encounter. 

The  close  of  a  century  of  the  common  era  has  come  to 
be  regarded  as  an  important  stage  in  the  history  of  the 
human  race,  although  it  is  such  an  ai*tificial  division  of 


64  INTRODUCTION 


time  that  many  people  are  uncertain  in  which  year  it 
ends,  and  when  its  successor  begins.  Whether  we  quit 
the  nineteenth  century  on  the  last  day  of  1899,  or  begin 
the  twentieth  only  with  1901,  it  is  devoutly  to  be  hoped 
that  for  the  relations  of  England  and  France  the  epoch 
may  have  no  other  importance  than  that  of  a  date  to  mark 
the  completion  of  an  unexampled  span  of  peace  which 
gives  promise  of  attaining  unbroken  its  hundredth  anni- 
versary. But  to  aid  that  happy  consummation  is  not 
within  the  power  of  any  writer,  however  sincere  his 
pacific  ardour ;  for  the  issues  which  divide  or  unite 
nations  are  regulated  by  unexpected  hazards  which  defy 
even  the  calculations  of  statesmen  and  divert  the  patriotic 
passions  of  peoples.  The  only  advantage  in  this  respect 
possessed  by  an  assiduous  student  of  two  great  countries 
is  that  his  intimate  knowledge  of  their  inhabitants  puts 
him  in  the  position  of  a  favoured  spectator  of  their 
national  life  and  of  their  international  relations;  so, 
calling  to  mind  that  the  deity  who  protected  the  traffic 
of  the  book-stalls  had  his  shrine  hard  by  the  gates  which, 
,  opening  or  shut,  indicated  the  imminence  of  war  or  the 
establishment  of  peace,  he  may  say  to  his  book  on  send- 
ing it  forth :  — 

Vertuumum  Jauumque,  liber,  spectare  videris. 


BOOK  I 

THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE 


CHAPTER  I 

> 

I 

At  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  there  are  two 
families  of  the  human  species  of  which  the  institutions 
and  experiments,  political  and  social,  are  of  surpassing 
interest  to  students,  statesmen,  and  philosophers.  That 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  in  its  marvellous  expansion,  should 
command  their  attention  is  not  surprising,  seeing  how 
it  has  carried  all  over  the  globe  the  English  language, 
imposing  it,  as  well  as  versions  of  the  mother  constitu- 
tion, on  new  communities  of  diverse  origin,  the  largest 
and  most  mixed  of  which  is  not  subject  to  the  sceptre  of 
England.  But  besides  the  societies  peopling  the  British 
Empire  and  the  American  Commonwealth,  there  is  a 
nation  in  the  Old  World  which,  though  it  has  not 
expanded  either  in  Europe  or  beyond  the  seas,  is  equally 
attractive  to  study.  The  frontiers  of  France  are  not 
wider  than  they  were  when  the  United  States  were  British 
dependencies ;  its  population  has  scarcely  increased  since 
our  Australian  colonies  were  constituted;  its  emigrants 
who  go  forth  to  distant  lands  with  fixed  intent  to  remain 
and  to  stock  them  with  a  French-speaking  population 
are  fewer  than  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  Yet  the 
people  inhabiting  this  tract  of  the  continent,  their  social 
economy,  their  ideas  on  government  and  the  development 

67 


68      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

of  their  institutions,  are  as  full  of  living  and  philosophi- 
cal interest  as  those  of  any  community  on  the  face  of  the 
earth. 

If  this  could  be  said  of  other  nations  of  modern 
Europe  the  importance  of  France  as  a  subject  of  social 
and  political  study  would  not  be  remarkable,  for  its  high 
place  is  unchallenged  among  the  great  powera.  But  the 
interest  inspired  by  each  of  the  others  is  limited  or 
special.  Austro-Hungary  is  a  collection  of  peoples 
heterogeneous  in  language  and  race;  United  Italy  lives 
on  the  renown  of  the  ages  when  Italy  was  a  geographi- 
cal expression;  Russia  is  a  quarter  of  the  globe,  of 
which  the  European  fringe  administers  a  score  of  races, 
mostly  Asiatic,  under  the  autocracy  of  an  imported 
dynasty. 

There  is,  however,  one  nation  of  Europe  which  can  be 
mentioned  side  by  side  with  England  and  France;  yet 
Germany,  which  stands  with  them  conspicuous  in  the 
front  rank  of  civilisation,  does  not  attract  the  attention 
of  the  outside  world  as  do  France,  the  United  Kingdom, 
and  Greater  Britain.  This  anomaly  is  so  curious  that  it 
deserves  a  short  consideration.  The  Germans,  having 
beaten  the  French  on  the  battle-field,  proceeded  to  new 
victories  in  the  struggle  for  commercial  priority,  and 
having  surpassed  their  neighbours  in  this  contest,  they 
are  threatening  the  industrial  supremacy  of  Great  Britain. 
Scientific  and  systematic,  they  pursue  the  practical  arts 
of  peace  with  the  same  serious  spirit  with  which  tliey 
perfected  the  art  of  war.  Nor  is  their  energy  entirely 
material  in  its  aims.  Learning  and  research  are  still 
cultivated  for  their  own  sake  in  Germany,  and  critical 
philosophy  still  has  its  home  there.     Again,  the  popula- 


CH.  I         THE  NATURE  OF  GERMANIC  PROMINENCE  69 

tions  of  both  hemispheres  are  affected  by  the  develop- 
ments of  the  social  problem  in  the  German  Empire,  which 
is  the  chief  centre  of  socialistic  agitation  in  the  world; 
while  at  the  other  end  of  the  political  scale  there  is  a 
monarch  whose  unflagging  youth  has  kept  the  eyes  of  all 
mankind  fixed  on  his  Imperial  domain.  But  the  Emperor 
is  not  the  only  German  sovereign  who  commands  atten- 
tion. There  is  scarcely  a  throne  in  Christendom  which 
is  not  filled  by  one  of  his  race.  In  most  of  the  reigning 
families  of  Europe,  like  those  of  England  and  of  Russia, 
the  strain  is  wholly  Germanised;  in  others,  like  the 
House  of  Savoy,  it  is  less  so;  but  the  general  result  is 
that  allegiance  to  the  institution  of  royalty  in  all  civil- 
ised countries  involves  loyalty  to  a  personage  of  German 
descent.  Even  in  the  line  of  Bernadotte,  the  last  living 
and  effective  relic  of  the  Napoleonic  legend,  since  the  son 
of  the  Gascon  lawyer  made  a  queen  of  the  daughter  of 
Clary,  the  merchant  of  Marseilles,  German  intermarriages 
have  un-Gallicised  the  Swedish  dynasty.  Moreover  if 
France  had  to  take  as  ruler  either  of  the  pretenders  who 
advance  hereditary  claims,  the  choice  would  have  to 
be  made  between  an  Orleans  whose  father  was  half  a 
German,  and  who  himself  has  married  a  Teutonic  prin- 
cess, and  a  Bonaparte  who  has  no  French  blood  in  his 
veins,  but  who  had  two  German  grandmothers.^ 

1  The  son  of  Bernadotte,  who  succeeded  his  father  on  the  throne  of 
Sweden  as  Oscar  I. ,  married  the  daughter  of  Eugene  Beauhamais  by  a 
princess  of  Bavaria.  His  son,  the  present  king,  married  a  princess  of 
Nassau,  and  the  Prince  Royal  is  married  to  a  princess  of  Baden.  The 
mother  of  the  Comte  de  Paris  was  a  princess  of  Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 
and  the  wife  of  the  Due  d'Orl^ans  is  a  Hapsburg.  The  two  grandmothers 
of  Prince  Victor  Bonaparte  were  a  princess  of  Wurtemberg,  wife  of 
Jerome,  sometime  king  of  Westphalia,  and  a  Hapsburg,  wife  of  Victor 
Emmanuel,  whose  mother  likewise  was  a  Hapsburg. 


70  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

Thus  the  prominence  of  the  Germans  in  arms  and  com- 
merce, in  learning  and  sociology,  to  say  nothing  of  their 
monopoly  of  the  crowns  of  Europe,  would  suggest  that 
the  institutions  of  tlieir  fatherland,  and  the  life  and 
customs  of  its  inhabitants,  would  have  a  claim  on  the 
interest  of  other  civilised  peoples  as  great  as  that  inspired 
by  the  political  and  social  features  of  Fi-ance.  This  is 
not  the  place  to  demonstrate  that  it  is  not  so,  or  to  dis- 
cover the  reasons  of  the  anomaly,  but  we  may  glance  at 
one  superficial  sign  of  the  truth  of  the  proposition.  The 
English  are  a  Teutonic  race,  and  the  relations  of  England 
and  Germany  are  intimate  and  manifold ;  but  in  the 
more  cultivated  circles  of  London  it  is  probable  that  for 
every  twenty  persons  who,  questioned  abruptly,  could 
give  the  names  of  half-a-dozen  French  writers  of  the 
present  decade,  not  one  could  mention  three  contempo- 
rary German  authors;  and  if  one  so  well-informed  were 
encountered,  he  would  be  either  an  abstruse  specialist, 
or  a  youth  filled  for  a  competitive  examination  with 
knowledge  encyclopaedic  and  momentary.  The  reasons, 
historical  and  actual,  why  members  of  other  civilised 
communities  take  so  little  spontaneous  interest  in  the 
life  of  the  people  of  Germany  cannot  be  enumerated  here. 
The  chief,  perhaps,  is  that  the  Germans  are  burdened 
with  a  language  difficult  to  master,  which  they  them- 
selves willingly  relinquish  for  tongues  more  practical. 
By  this  faculty  of  repudiating  what  is  indigenous  the 
Germans  seem  to  warn  the  world  that  nothing  but  their 
exports  are  worthy  of  attention.  The  flood  of  German 
immigrants  who  renounce  their  nationality  to  settle  per- 
manently in  English-speaking  lands,  under  Anglo-Saxon 
institutions,  eschewing  their  own  colonies,  is  an  eloquent 


CH.  I  THE  ATTRACTIVENESS   OF  FRANCE  71 

testimony  of  the  failure  of  Germany  to  inspire  a  durable 
interest  even  in  native  hearts. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  essay  any  comparison  between 
the  French  and  the  German  character.  Here  we  have 
only  to  do  with  France,  and  there  is  no  need  to  demon- 
strate that  the  French  nation  has  that  quality  in  which 
the  Germans  are  lacking.  All  other  civilised  peoples 
look  to  France  and  to  the  human  movement  within  its 
borders ;  and  though  its  relative  importance  in  the  world 
may  be  less  than  formerly,  with  improved  means  of  com- 
munication, which  have  developed  its  rivals,  France  has 
become  an  object  of  interest  to  a  greater  number  of 
denizens  of  other  lands  than  at  any  time  since  it  became 
a  nation.  No  doubt  that  interest  is  for  the  most  part 
superficial.  Still  it  indicates  superiority  in  a  race  that 
strangers  all  over  the  globe  should  study,  not  as  a  pass- 
ing fashion  but  with  steady  eagerness,  descriptions  of  its 
life  and  manners  as  portrayed  in  romances  and  comedies. 
It  is  true  that  most  of  these  works  of  fancy  give  an 
erroneous  impression  of  French  domestic  ethics;  true, 
also,  is  it  that  in  spite  of  the  vast  numbers  of  aliens  who 
sojourn  or  travel  in  France,  attracted  by  its  amenity,  few 
foreigners  have  any  acquaintance  with  the  real  elements 
of  the  French  nation.  Nevertheless  it  commands  atten- 
tion, not  only  in  its  lighter  aspects  of  existence,  but  as 
a  people  which,  in  making  experiments  in  the  art  of 
government,  has  caused  more  commotion  and  greater 
sacrifice  of  life  and  treasure  than  all  the  modern  com- 
munities of  the  human  race  put  together  in  essaying 
similar  problems.  It  is  in  its  quality  as  the  land  of  the 
Revolution  that  we  have  now  to  consider  the  position 
of  France. 


72  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

II 

During  the  first  three-quarters  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  tradition  of  the  great  Revolution  was  so  sacred 
in  France  that  Frenchmen,  in  spite  of  the  national  pride 
which  they  cherish,  seemed  willing  to  ascribe  their  high 
position  as  a  people  in  the  ranks  of  humanity  less  to 
the  prodigious  genius  of  their  race  than  to  the  political 
convulsion  amid  which  the  ancient  monarchy  and  its 
institutions  disappeared.  The  various  regimes  which 
subsequently  succeeded  one  another  were  severally  de- 
fended as  phases  of  it.  Thus  Napoleon  was  the  soldier 
of  the  Revolution,  and  the  Empire  its  apotheosis.  The 
Restoration  with  its  Charter  was  the  constitutional 
monarchy  to  have  been  set  up  by  the  National  Assembly 
but  for  the  king's  flight  to  Varennes  and  the  European 
coalition.  It  fell  into  anti-Revolutionary  hands,  so  the 
Monarchy  of  July  was  put  in  its  place  under  the  son 
of  Philippe  Egalit^,  who  was  presented  to  the  people 
by  La  Fayette,  the  inventor  in  1789  of  the  tricolour, ^ 
now  unfurled  again.  The  Republic  of  1848,  of  which 
Lamartine  was  the  transitory  hero,  owed  its  unstable 
foundation  to  his  eulogy  of  the  Convention.  The  Second 
Empire,  which  suppressed  it,  was  advertised  as  the  asser- 
tion of  the  principle  of  the  Revolution;  and  when  the 
last  Constitution  of  the  century  had  to  be  devised  the 
delegates  of  the  nation,  who  hesitated  about  its  form, 
agreed  with  overwhelming  voice  in  their  adhesion  to  the 
doctrine  of  1789. 

1  La  Fayette  was  not  persistently  loyal  to  the  tricolour.  In  March, 
1815,  on  the  news  of  Napoleon's  escape  from  Elba,  he  came  up  from 
La  Grange  to  offer  his  services  to  Louis  XVIII.,  and  appeared  at  the  Tui- 
leries  with  the  white  cockade  in  his  hat.  —  Memoir es  de  La  Fayette,  v.  5. 


en.  I  UNIQUE   QUALITY  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  73 

To  the  great  book  of  the  Revolution  the  friends  and 
foes  of  each  form  of  government  set  up  in  France  turned, 
just  as  in  our  country  rival  religious  sects  cited  the 
authority  of  holy  Scripture :  — 

Liber  hie  est  in  quo  quaerit  sua  dogmata  quisque, 
Invenit  et  pariter  dogmata  quisque  sua. 

In  English  history  there  has  been  no  one  era  compar- 
able to  the  French  Revolution.  There  have  been  epochs 
of  the  highest  importance,  such  as  the  Reformation,  the 
Elizabethan  Age,  the  Great  Rebellion,  and  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1688,  but  there  is  no  one  cardinal  period  to  which 
men  have  referred  everything  in  the  modern  State.  The 
most  remarkable  feature  of  the  French  Revolution  was 
perhaps  the  immediate  impression  which  it  gave  of  its 
historical  importance.  As  a  rule  the  impressional  reac- 
tion after  a  political  convulsion  is  swift.  A  man  felled 
to  the  ground  by  a  fragment  of  his  house,  blown  off  by 
a  passing  gust,  may  suffer  the  same  sensation  as  the 
victim  of  a  tornado  which  has  devastated  a  continent; 
but  he  soon  recovers  and  recognises,  in  spite  of  his  per- 
sonal emotion,  that  the  disturbance  was  only  local. 
This,  however,  was  not  the  experience  of  the  witnesses 
of  the  Revolution  and  of  at  least  two  generations  of  their 
progeny.  M.  Taine  himself,  whose  appreciations  we 
shall  have  to  take  account  of,  having  grown  up  among 
survivors  of  the  period,  could  say  that  he  had  been  able 
to  write  on  it  as  though  his  theme  had  been  the  Revolu- 
tions of  Florence  or  of  Athens,^  and  this  was  not  entirely 
due  to  his  own  peculiar  objectivity.     The  French  Revo- 

^  La  Bevolution,  vol.  i.  Preface. 


74  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

lution  had  raised  itself  before  the  eyes  even  of  those  who 
had  involuntarily  grown  up  in  it  as  a  barrier  between 
modern  times  and  the  past.  M.  de  Barante,  the  ambas- 
sador of  Louis  Philippe,  who  all  his  life  recorded  his 
impressions,  noted  that  when,  an  observant  youth,  he 
entered  the  Ecole  Polytechnique  under  the  Directory, 
only  nine  years  after  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  people  spoke 
of  the  Ancient  Regime  as  of  something  belonging  to 
antiquity  or  to  a  distant  land.^ 

We  who  now  stand  on  the  verge  of  the  twentieth 
century  look  back  on  the  epoch  preceding  the  French 
Revolution  as  belonging  to  the  distant  past,  yet  even 
our  generation  is  not  remote  from  it.  A  Parisian  whose 
life  was  cut  short  before  its  natural  term  in  the  Presi- 
dency of  M.  Faure  had  as  witnesses  to  her  marriage  three 
contemporaries  of  Robespierre  and  Danton,  born  when 
the  mother  of  the  Bonapartes  was  a  little  child.^  Four 
years  older  than  Charlotte  Corday  was  the  father  of  the 
Due  de  La  Tr^moille,  who  was  born  in  the  reign  of 
Queen  Victoria.  An  old  priest  in  the  Sarthe  still  says 
his  mass  in  the  parish  church,  of  which  the  previous  curd 
was  instituted  in  1785,^  when  the  clergy  held  a  fifth  of 
the  soil  of  France,  and  their  prelates  were  semi-sovereign 
princes.     The  span  of  life  of  some  of  our  own  country- 

^  Souvenirs  du  Baron  de  Barante,  vol.  i. 

2  The  Baronne  de  Valley,  murdered  in  1896,  was  married  at  St.  Ger- 
main I'Auxerrois  in  the  early  days  of  the  Monarchy  of  July,  and  her  mar- 
riage certificate,  which  established  her  identity,  showed  that  her  witnesses 
were  contemporaries  of  Danton  and  Robespierre,  who  were  both  bom  in 
1759.  Letitia  Ramolino,  the  mother  of  Napoleon,  was  bom  in  1750,  and 
Charlotte  Corday  in  1768. 

*  Tlie  Abb6  Paris,  who  became  cur6  of  Vallon-sur-G6s,  diocese  of  Le 
Mans,  in  1842,  as  the  immediate  successor  of  the  Abb4  Frangois  Pineau 
who  was  instituted  in  1785. 


CH.  I       THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  REVOLUTION         75 

men  makes  us  realise  more  vividly  how  near  we  are  to 
that  great  era.  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his  last  Ministry  had 
colleagues  between  whose  age  and  his  there  was  a  longer 
space  of  years  than  between  the  date  of  his  birth  and  that 
of  St.  Just  the  Conventional,  whom  Thermidor  brought 
to  the  scaffold;  and  the  aged  statesman  left  in  the  House 
of  Commons  an  older  veteran,  who  was  learning  to  read 
when  the  Revolutionary  Calendar  was  still  used  in 
France.^ 

We  shall  presently  consider  the  causes  which  induced 
the  survivors  of  the  Revolution  to  look  back  upon  it  as  a 
most  imposing  epoch,  raising  to  heroic  rank  those  whom 
it  had  produced.  They  in  turn  handed  on  the  tradition 
to  their  sons,  who  inherited  their  reflected  lustre.  Hence 
the  belief  of  the  old  men  whom  this  generation  has  seen, 
such  as  M.  Jules  Simon,  that  the  French  Revolution  was 
the  greatest  event,  ancient  or  modern,  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  The  venerable  philosopher  who,  though  a 
Republican,  in  the  days  when  the  creed  was  a  disability, 
was  treated  as  a  Reactionary  under  the  Third  Republic, 
had  opposed  the  Second  Empire  as  the  contradiction  of 
his  view  of  the  Revolution.  Yet  there  were  supporters 
of  the  Imperial  regime  who  were  eulogists  of  the  Revolu- 
tion as  eloquent  as  the  Republicans  of  1848.  There  was 
Sainte-Beuve,  born  ten  years  nearer  to  it  than  Jules 
Simon,  whose  devotion  to  the  Second  Empire  did  not 
prevent  his  writing:  "If  you  would  admire  the  French 
Revolution,  study  it :  it  came,  like  the  Law  from  Sinai, 

1  Mr.  Gladstone  was  born  in  1809,  forty  years  after  St.  Just,  who  was 
the  same  age  as  Napoleon.  Some  authorities  make  St.  Just  two  years 
older,  but  books  and  prints  published  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  give 
the  date  of  1769.  Mr.  Villiere  was  bom  in  1802,  and  was  in  his  fourth 
year  when  the  Revolutionary  Calendar  was  abolished. 


76      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

amid  thunder  and  lightning ;  Fox  spoke  up  for  it,  for  the 
foreigner  loved  it  as  much  as  we  did ;  Goethe  blessed  it : 
Schiller  defended  it;  Byron  celebrated  it  —  all  when  it 
was  only  fifteen  years  old.  In  a  hundred  years  it  will  be 
acclaimed  as  far  as  the  land  of  the  Samoyedes."^ 

That  remote  region  is  on  the  European  frontier  of 
Siberia,  and  Sainte-Beuve's  rhapsody  sounds  like  a 
prophecy,  precociously  fulfilled,  of  the  Franco-Russian 
alliance,  when  the  Tsar's  Arctic  subjects  no  doubt  ap- 
plauded their  master's  obeisance  to  the  Marseillaise^  and 
his  amity  for  the  Republic.  But  prophecy  is  an  easier 
science  than  history,  and  the  great  critic  in  his  enthusi- 
asm ventured  on  the  general  statement  that  the  foreigner 
loved  the  Revolution  as  much  as  did  the  French.  If  he 
had  appended  that  remark  to  his  citation  of  the  three 
poets,  it  would  have  been  less  controvertible,  as  in  all 
nations  the  poetical  faculty  is  bestowed  on  man  in  the 
inverse  ratio  of  his  abstract  love  of  law  and  order.  But 
to  couple  the  general  proposition  with  the  name  of  a 
foreign  statesman,  however  sympathetic,  was  misleading, 
for  the  distinctive  feature  of  the  French  Revolution, 
and  indeed  the  partial  justification  of  its  excesses,  was 
the  hostile  interference  of  the  alien ;  and  when  Fox 
raised  his  voice  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  occa- 
sions cherished  by  his  French  admirers,  Sheridan  was 
almost  alone  to  echo  it.  The  talent  of  Sainte-Beuve 
reached  its  prolonged  maturity  when  the  Revolution  was 
fifty  years  old,  and  had  attained  a  wider  esteem  than  it 
had  previously  enjoyed.  In  the  early  part  of  the  cen- 
tury the  career  of  Napoleon  had  made  the  Revolution  an 
object  of  alarm  outside  France,  rather  than  of  admira- 
^  Nouvelle  Correspondance. 


CH.  1      THE   WHIGS   AND  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION  77 

tion.  The  Restoration  was  a  period  of  recuperation 
which  was  not  of  a  nature  to  attract  much  sympathy 
for  France ;  but  when  the  Monarchy  of  July  came, 
with  its  sham  air  of  1688,  then  the  Liberals  abroad 
vied  with  the  sons  of  the  Revolution  at  home  in  their 
recognition  of  the  grandeur  of  the  palingenesis  of 
France. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  Macaulay  wrote  his  famous 
essay  on  Barere,  and  belaboured  that  despicable  member 
of  the  Convention  with  invective  well-merited,  but  of 
a  violence  unworthy  of  the  pen  of  a  master  of  refined 
and  noble  language. ^  Yet  amid  the  foaming  torrent  of 
his  rage  the  great  apostle  of  the  Whigs  becomes  calm  and 
judicial  when  he  approaches  the  subject  of  the  deposition 
and  the  death  of  the  king.  He  complacently  approves  of 
the  vote  of  the  Convention  abolishing  the  royal  office  ; 
and  when  he  comes  to  the  regicide,  though  he  mildly 
chides  the  timidity  and  vacillation  of  the  Girondins  who 
voted  for  it,  in  palliation  he  calls  attention  to  the  becom- 
ing emotion  and  broken  voice  of  their  leader,  Vergniaud, 
when  he  announced  the  sentence.  All  that  calls  forth  his 
fury  in  that  grim  scene  is  that  Barere  made  a  "  lying  " 
quotation  from  an  ancient  author  unknown  to  Macaulay. 

1  "Macaulay  a  la  main  rude;  quand  il  frappe  il  assomme"  (Taine, 
Litterature  Anglaise,  liv.  5,  c.  iii.).  This  appreciation  refei-s  to  Macau- 
lay's  harsh  epithets  applied  to  Southey.  Taine,  in  his  highly  eulogistic 
criticism  of  Macaulay's  fine  qualities,  ascribes  his  vehemence  to  the  pas- 
sion of  the  orator  which  called  forth  "  la  fureur  de  I'invective,  I'exc^s  de 
rancune."  The  essay  on  Barfere  is  not  mentioned  by  Tame,  who,  how- 
ever, contrasts  Guizot's  dispassionate  attitude  towards  the  history  of 
England  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  that  of  Macaulay,  who  lived 
again  every  day  of  the  period  as  a  contemporary  partisan.  But  Macau- 
lay did  not  become  dispassionate  in  treating  of  the  aifairs  of  another 
coimtry,  and  Barfere  provoked  his  wrath  just  as  violently  as  did  Arch- 
bishop Laud  or  Mr.  Montgomery. 


78      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

Now,  apart  from  the  estimate  of  the  personal  character  of 
individual  Girondins  and  Jacobins,  this  attitude  of  apol- 
ogy for  revolutionaries,  who  confined  themselves  to  regi- 
cide, and  of  reprobation  of  less  moderate  reformers,  who 
sent  also  their  colleagues  to  the  scaffold,  is  consistent 
with  Whiggism.  The  confiscation  of  church  property, 
the  execution  or  the  deposition  of  kings  were  beneficent 
events  which  in  England  had  put  riches  and  government 
in  the  hands  of  a  Liberal  oligarchy ;  but  that  moderate 
revolutionaries  should  incur  revolutionary  penalties  whole- 
sale was  unreasonable.  Had  not  Hampden  bled  on  the 
field  and  Sidney  on  the  scaffold,  and  did  not  those 
vicarious  sacrifices  suffice  to  justify  the  enjoyment  of 
power  and  place  by  their  prosperous  disciples  from  gen- 
eration to  generation  ? 

The  services  of  the  Whigs  to  the  English  nation  were 
large,  and  largely  were  they  recompensed  ;  but  the 
French  Revolution  was  a  movement  too  rapid  for  them 
to  understand,  surveying  it  from  the  depths  of  their  arm- 
chairs. The  idea  that  the  flood  could  have  been  stayed 
after  the  execution  of  Louis  XVI.  was  as  chimerical  as 
all  others  founded  on  false  and  strained  analogies  between 
the  precipitate  French  Revolution  and  the  slowly  succes- 
sive political  convulsions  and  reorganisations  in  England. 
Later  we  shall  observe  some  of  the  ills  which  have  ac- 
crued to  France  in  consequence  of  the  superficial  resem- 
blance of  certain  historical  events  in  the  two  countries. 
One  of  them  was  pleasing  the  fancy  of  Macaulay  when  he 
wrote  his  essay  in  1844,  —  the  similarity  of  the  position 
of  Louis  Philippe  on  the  throne  of  Charles  X.  to  that  of 
William  HI.  wearing  the  abdicated  crown  of  James  II., 
—  and    he  seemed   to   think   that   notwithstanding    the 


LAMARTINE  79 


savage  blunders  of  the  Terror,  and  the  interludes  of  the 
Consulate  and  the  Empire,  France  had  arrived  safely  in 
the  haven  of  limited  monarchy,  never  to  venture  again  on 
stormy  seas  of  revolution.^  The  Monarchy  of  July  was 
in  many  respects  an  admirable  regime,  but  it  had  one 
grave  defect,  that  of  being  wholly  unsuited  to  the  politi- 
cal temperament  of  the  people  of  France.  So  while 
Macaulay  was  complacently  patronising  those  portions  of 
the  great  Revolution  which  reminded  him  of  passages  in 
the  growth  of  the  British  constitution,  native  glorifiers 
of  heroes  of  the  epoch  which  had  touched  the  fancy  of  the 
Whig  essayist  were  undermining  his  cherished  fabric  of 
limited  monarchy. 

An  event  had  just  taken  place  fated  gravely  to  affect 
the  relations  of  the  Revolution  and  modern  France.  In 
1843  M.  de  Lamartine  joined  the  Radical  opposition  in 
the  Chamber  where  he  had  sat  for  ten  years.  He  had 
not,  like  Macaulay,  been  brought  up  in  a  school  of  apol- 
ogy for  revolution  and  regicide.  Born  in  1790,  he  was 
not  one  of  those  who  imbibed  in  infancy  the  principles 
associated  with  that  period,  for,  an  aristocrat  by  instinct 
and  training,  he  attained  his  fame  as  the  bard  of  the 
throne  and  the  altar,  poetising  the  reactionary  ideas  which 
proved  fatal  to  the  Monarchy  of  the  Restoration.  After 
its  overthrow  he  travelled  in  the  East,  bringing  thence  a 
stock  of  visionary  ideas  which  finally  turned  him  into  a 
sentimental  revolutionist.  When  double  the  age  of  some 
of  his  new  favourites  of  the  Convention,  he  announced 
that  the  French  Revolution  was  merely  an  emanation  of 

1  Twelve  years  earlier  (1832)  this  idea  predominates  in  his  essay  on 
Mirabeau,  in  which  he  describes  the  French  Revolution  as  "a  great 
blessing  to  mankind,"  the  Orleans  Monarchy  having  just  been  founded. 


80  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

the  idea  of  Christianity  applied  to  politics.^  In  1847  he 
published  the  literary  result  of  his  conversion,  and  in  the 
history  of  letters  no  book  ever  produced  consequences 
so  formidable,  so  wide-spread,  and  so  immediate  as  the 
Girondins.  The  mind  of  the  public  no  doubt  was  ready 
for  revolt.  The  government  of  M.  Guizot  was  not  popu- 
lar ;  a  wider  franchise  was  demanded ;  and  before  a  year 
had  revolved  the  people,  further  irritated  against  the 
upper  and  political  classes  by  the  revelation  of  parlia- 
mentary scandal  and  the  murder  of  the  Duchesse  de  Pras- 
lin  by  her  husband,  being  thrilled  with  the  poet's  romantic 
idealising  of  the  tragic  anarchy  of  the  Revolution,  made 
an  end  of  the  limited  Monarchy. 

At  no  moment  was  the  French  Revolution  ever  so  uni- 
versally acclaimed  as  in  1848,  and  no  Frenchman  born 
since  the  taking  of  the  Bastille  has  enjoyed  idolatry  so 
complete  as  did  Lamartine  during  his  brief  hour  of  popular- 
ity. The  one  element  in  the  nation  which  had  stood  hostile 
to  the  Revolution  now  rallied  to  the  movement  led  by  the 
mystical  singer  of  the  sanctuary,  and  the  clergy  blessed 
the  Trees  of  Liberty  planted  to  solemnise  the  new  era. 
But  in  vain  did  Lamartine  refuse  to  accept  the  red  flag 
which,  with  grim  and  ironical  logic,  the  mob  wished  to 
impose  on  the  government  of  the  Second  Republic  sprung 
from  his  lyrics.  His  eloquence  prevailed  only  for  a  short 
season  over  the  disorder  he  had  inspired,  and  before  the 
year  ended  the  people  of  France  used  their  new  franchise 
to  call  to  the  supreme  power  Louis  Bonaparte,  simply 
because  he  bore  the  name  of  the  soldier  of  the  Revolution 
who  had  turned  its  anarchy  into  order.     Neglect  fell  upon 

1  "La  France  parlementaire,"  vol.  iii.  (^£crits  et  discours politiquea  d« 
Lamartine,  1843). 


CH.  I  THE   REVOLUTION  OF  1848  81 

the  chief  maker  of  the  Republic  long  before  it  had  turned 
into  the  Second  Empire,  and  the  pathetic  vicissitudes  of 
his  declining  years  are  a  warning  to  poets  not  to  descend 
from  their  dim  heights  to  sport  with  the  prose  of  modern 
history  and  of  politics. 

Lamartine  did  not  initiate  the  revival  of  the  revolu- 
tionary legend  in  the  middle  of  the  century.  It  was 
cherished  in  some  form  by  all  the  moderate  men  of  the 
day,  like  Sainte-Beuve,  who  has  been  quoted,  and  who 
scoffed  at  the  profile  of  Jocelyn  with  which  the  creator 
of  that  romantic  hero  invested  all  the  orators  of  the 
Convention.  Among  men  of  less  sober  opinion  Louis 
Blanc  and  Michelet  had,  before  the  appearance  of  the 
Grirondins,  published  their  Histories  of  the  Revolution 
which,  in  glorifying  in  cruder  tones  its  excesses,  were 
calculated  to  fire  the  fanaticism  of  Jacobins.  It  was  a 
different  audience  to  which  Lamartine  appealed ;  clothing 
the  revolutionary  idea  in  the  music  of  poetry,  he  touched 
a  chord  in  the  human  heart  which  the  middle-class  gov- 
ernment had  neglected,  and  attracted  to  the  Revolution 
those  who  had  regarded  it  with  fear  beforo  he  turned  it 
into  popular  epic.  His  flowery  profuseness,  unlike  the 
simple  style  of  the  great  masters  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury or  of  some  of  his  contemporaries,  has  lost  its  charm. 
Yet  even  now  those  who  have  no  illusions  left  about  the 
heroes  of  the  Convention,  who  agree  with  Lally-Tollendal 
when  he  said  of  the  Girondins  that  "  their  existence  and 
their  death  had  been  equally  baleful  to  their  country," 
can  be  infected  with  the  emotion  of  the  poet  when  they 
read  his  romance  of  Guadet,  at  the  secret  interview  with 
the  King  and  Queen  in  the  Tnileries,  kissing  the  sleeping 
Dauphin  by  the  light  of  a  taper  held  by  the  royal  mother ; 


82      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

or  the  description  of  Vergniaud  as  the  youth  who  with  a 
gesture  had  overturned  a  throne. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  Revolution  of  1848,  wherein  it 
differed  from  the  great  Revolution,  was  that  it  gave  the 
supreme  power  in  the  State  to  the  democracy,  which, 
though  it  had  played  a  strenuous  part  all  over  France 
in  the  violent  events  of  the  last  decade  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  had  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  direction  of  the 
central  government.  The  Convention  of  1792  contained 
no  men  of  the  people,  and  the  heroes  celebrated  by  Lamar- 
tine,  in  the  battles  between  Girondins  and  Mountain, 
were  members  of  the  middle-class  whose  domination  he 
helped  to  destroy  in  the  Revolution  of  February,  1848. 
The  Days  of  June,  in  the  same  year,  again  differed  from 
every  previous  revolutionary  movement  in  France,  as  the 
aim  of  the  insurgents  was  not  to  change  the  form  of 
government,  the  Republic  then  having  existed  for  four 
months,  but  to  alter  the  order  of  society.  It  was  this 
peril  which  alarmed  the  newly  enfranchised  population 
of  France,  so  out  of  the  Parisian  barricades  arose  first 
the  Presidency  of  Louis  Bonaparte,  and  then,  its  natural 
consequence,  the  Second  Empire. 

M.  de  Tocqueville,  because  he  had  opposed  the  govern- 
ment of  M.  Guizot  and  was  already  celebrated  as  the  dis- 
criminating eulogist  of  the  new  order  of  democracy,  has 
had  his  name  unduly  associated  with  the  democratic 
Revolution  of  1848.  He  was,  however,  a  close  witness 
of  its  events,  being  a  member  of  the  National  Assembly 
and  for  a  brief  season  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs  under 
the  Prince-President.  Never  was  there  greater  contrast 
than  between  the  rhapsodic  inexactness  of  Lamartine 
and  the  calm  discernment  of  Tocqueville,  who,  when  he 


CH.  I  THE   REVOLUTION  OF   1848  83 

died  in  1859,  leaving  studies  in  political  philosophy 
more  valuable  than  any  others  produced  in  the  middle 
of  the  century,  had  not  attained  the  age  at  which  the 
poet  had  embroiled  Europe  with  his  youthful  phantasies. 
The  public  careers  of  both  were  brought  to  an  end  by 
the  reaction  which  ensued  from  the  excesses  of  1848  ; 
but  Tocqueville,  while  he  was  still  holding  office  under 
Louis  Bonaparte,  foresaw  that  the  first  durable  result 
of  universal  suffrage  would  inevitably  be  an  arbitrary 
monarchical  government.  The  tendency  of  the  popular 
voice  was  to  invest  the  executive  with  the  widest  powers 
in  order  to  be  able  to  repress  the  dangers  menacing 
public  prosperity;  and  a  powerful  executive,  combined 
with  the  centralised  system  perfected  by  the  other  Bona- 
parte, could  not  but  lead  to  Napoleonic  dictatorship  in 
the  hands  of  one  who  bore  the  Imperial  names.  Louis 
Napoleon  took  care  not  to  let  his  triumph  over  the  in- 
surrectionaries  of  1848  be  considered  as  a  victory  over 
the  Revolution.  While  he  assailed  the  new  Republic 
and  destroyed  its  symbols,  he  persistently  declared  that 
the  principle  which  he  represented  was  the  Revolution. 
When  acclaimed  on  his  progress  through  France  in  1852 
in  the  interval  between  the  Coup  d'Etat  and  the  procla- 
mation of  the  Empire,  he  accepted  the  cries  of  "Vive 
I'Empereur,"  he  said,  because  his  uncle,  though  he 
checked  the  excesses  of  the  revolutionary  spirit,  had 
been  the  chief  instrument  to  cause  the  benefits  of  the 
Revolution  to  prevail.^  And  so  till  the  final  scene  in  the 
drama  of  his  dynasty,  when,  from  the  Imperial  head- 
quarters at  Metz,  Napoleon  III.  announced  that  "  the  glo- 
rious flag  just  unfurled  before  the  enemies  of  France 
*  Discours  de  Lyon,  19  Septembre,  1852. 


84      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

was  the  same  which  had  borue  across  Europe  the  civil- 
ising ideas  of  the  great  Revolution."  * 

The  reproduction  of  the  Empire  as  the  first  result  of 
popular  suffrage  in  France  was  a  great  disillusion  to 
the  theorists  who  regarded  sovereignty  of  the  people  as 
an  emanation  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  Revolution  as 
the  source  of  liberty.  Henceforth  there  was  a  tendency 
among  philosophers  to  defend  civil  and  individual  liberty 
rather  than  political  liberty,  and  to  combat  the  principle 
of  sovereignty  of  the  people,  which  had  given  birth  to 
democratic  despotism.  The  abstract  discussions  of  the 
Liberal  school  under  the  Second  Empire  had  not  much 
effect  either  in  aiding  the  opposition  to  the  Government 
or  in  altering  the  tradition  of  the  Revolution. ^  On  the 
other  hand  Tocqueville's  writings  on  the  Ancient  Regime 
and  the  Revolution  had  a  certain  influence  in  suggesting 
the  idea  that  the  normal  evolution  of  civilisation  might 
have  remedied  the  evils  of  the  old  Monarchy  without 
the  violence  of  the  last  period  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  work  which,  however,  was  destined  to  affect  the 
general  estimation  of  the  French  Revolution  more  seri- 
ously than  any  previous  philosophical  study  or  political 
vicissitude,  did  not  see  the  light  until  the  Second  Empire 
had  gone  the  way  of  all  the  preceding  doctrinaire,  liberal, 
or  democratic  forms  of  government  of  which  the  exist- 
ence in  France  had  been  justified  by  reference  to  prin- 
ciples laid  down  in  1789. 

1  Proclamation  du  28  Juillet,  1870. 

'  E.g.  the  works  of  Jules  Simon,  who  was  the  tutor,  and  of  Pr^vost- 
Paradol,  who  was  the  friend  of  Taine  at  the  £cole  Normale. 


M.  TAINE  85 


III 


In  1854  M.  Taine,  fatigued  by  his  philosophical  re- 
searches, which  had  already  given  him  the  repute  of 
an  original  thinker,  sought  recreation  in  reading  the 
Htstoire  Parlementaire  of  Roux  and  Bouchez,  an  au- 
thority on  the  Revolutionary  period.  He  was  struck 
with  the  intellectual  mediocrity  of  the  most  famous  men 
of  that  epoch  of  grandiose  renown,  and  decided  that  it 
would  be  an  historical  phenomenon  interesting  to  exam- 
ine. This  was  the  inception  of  the  capital  task  of  his 
life,  his  inquiry  into  the  Origins  of  Contemporary  France. 
Although  the  work  was  first  conceived  in  the  early  days 
of  the  Second  Empire,  at  a  moment  when  he  was  suffer- 
ing from  its  arbitrary  vexations,  there  is  little  trace  in 
it  that  he  had  any  particular  disfavour  for  that  regime. 
M.  Taine  had  such  a  power  of  detaching  himself  from 
surrounding  circumstances  that  he  was  able  to  bring  to 
bear  on  modern  events  in  his  own  country  the  same 
powers  of  independent  analysis  as  are  seen  in  his 
erudite  Essay  on  Livy^  or  in  his  History  of  English 
Literature. 

The  first  volume  of  the  Origines  de  la  France  Con- 
temporaine  did  not  appear  until  twenty  years  after  his 
inspiration  to  examine  the  genesis  and  nature  of  the 
Revolution,  and  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  need 
for  such  an  inquiry  had  beset  him,  when,  coming  of  age 
in  1849,  he  found  himself  invested,  by  the  new  system 
of  manhood  suffrage,  with  a  vote,  in  order  that  he  might 
not  only  make  his  choice  of  men,  but  show  his  preference 
for  theories.     As  he  was  neither  Royalist  nor  Republican, 


m  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

Democrat  nor  Conservative,  Socialist  nor  Bonapartist,  he 
envied  his  neighbours  endowed  with  political  convictions, 
and  began  to  ponder  on  the  foundations  of  their  faith. 
The  war  with  Prussia,  the  Commune,  and  the  harsh 
conditions  of  the  peace  of  1871  had  afflicted  him  before 
the  first  pages  of  the  great  work  appeared,  and  the 
minute  analysis  and  classification  of  the  persons  com- 
posing the  society  under  the  old  Monarchy,  together  with 
the  rigorous  conclusions  derived  therefrom,  portended 
that  his  appreciations  on  the  Revolution  would  not  be  in 
harmony  with  received  tradition. 

It  is  said  that  M.  Thiers,  in  his  last  days,  hearing  of 
the  coming  work,  exclaimed:  "He  must  take  care  not 
to  touch  my  Revolution";  and  by  the  expression  "my 
Revolution  "  the  aged  statesman  did  not  refer  to  his  own 
history  of  the  change  of  things  with  which,  as  a  youth, 
he  won  a  front  place  in  the  brilliant  literary  group  of 
the  Restoration.  He  was  giving  expression  to  the  sen- 
timent cherished  to  the  period  of  his  death  by  most 
Frenchmen,  excepting  the  fanatics  of  Legitimism,  that 
the  Revolution  was  a  sacred  manifestation  which  might 
be  diversely  interpreted,  but  never  profanely  assailed. 
M.  Taine  did,  however,  lay  desecrating  hands  on  it ;  he 
followed  the  injunction  of  Sainte-Beuve  and  studied  it 
as  it  had  never  been  studied,  with  a  result  contrary  to 
that  predicted  by  the  older  critic.  His  last  work  re- 
mains one  of  the  greatest  monuments  of  research  and 
diligence  ever  reared  in  France,  where  literary  labour  is 
inexhaustible.  Its  peculiar  feature  was  that  it  applied 
to  the  French  Revolution  the  spirit  of  criticism  which 
in  the  eighteenth  century  was  one  of  the  factors  in  pro- 
ducing the  great  upheaval.     The   esprit  critique,  which 


CH.  I  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  M.   TAINE'S   WORK  87 

helped  to  destroy  the  Old  Kegime,  lingered  in  France, 
and  had  aided  to  make  government  unstable,  while  it 
discouraged  faith  and  fostered  pessimism ;  but  never 
before  had  it  been  turned  upon  its  own  chief  work. 

The  adverse  judgments  on  the  work  of  Taine  were  to 
the  effect  that  the  minute  investigator  of  the  dissecting- 
room  was  incapable  of  discerning  through  his  lens  the 
great  organisms  and  their  movements,  of  which  he  per- 
ceived only  a  microscopic  fragment.  It  was  said  that 
while  in  his  exposure  of  the  excesses  of  the  Old  Regime 
he  dwelt  on  the  waste  of  wax  candles  at  Versailles,  he 
was  silent  as  to  the  grandeur  of  France  in  Europe  under 
the  last  kings  of  the  ancient  Monarchy ;  that  while  in 
revealing  the  anarchy  of  the  Revolution  he  gave  details 
of  the  outrages  of  village  incendiaries,  the  imposing 
figure  of  Mirabeau  is  unnoticed  on  his  pages  ;  that  while 
he  emphasised  the  private  defects  of  Napoleon,  describ- 
ing how  he  kicked  a  Senator  and  seized  a  Marshal  by 
the  throat  in  the  council-chamber,  he  had  never  a  word 
to  say  how  he  won  the  battles  of  Austerlitz  and  of  Jena. 
All  this  may  be  true,  but  Taine  did  not  conceive  that 
his  mission  was  to  repeat  the  well  known.  He  said  of 
his  work,  that  before  he  began  it  he  was  inclined  to 
think  as  most  Frenchmen  did,  only  his  opinions  were 
an  impression  more  or  less  vague  rather  than  a  faith, 
while  his  later  iconoclasm  was  due  to  the  conscientious 
and  exhaustive  study  of  documents.  The  Revolution 
was  in  his  view  the  first  application  of  moral  science 
to  human  affairs,  which  were  in  a  lamentable  state  in 
France  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XVI.,  and  needed  a  more 
practical  remedy  than  the  crude  philosophy  of  Rousseau, 
with  its  bad  method  and  its  false  and  precipitate  solu- 


88  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

tions.  Hence  the  catastrophe  of  1789  with  its  sequence, 
the  imperfect  reorganisation  effected  under  the  Con- 
sulate and  the  Empire,  which  has  lasted  all  the  century 
and,  in  his  judgment,  has  been  the  cause  of  the  political 
ills  which  have  afflicted  France  and  kept  it  down  from 
the  high  place  whereon  the  genius  of  its  people  would 
have  set  it.^ 

The  working  of  the  Napoleonic  machine  of  centralisa- 
tion in  combination  with  parliamentary  institutions  im- 
ported from  England,  amid  a  people  whose  political  ideas 
were  formulated  in  the  period  of  confusion  in  which  the 
Ancient  Regime  disappeared,  will  be  a  prominent  subject 
of  this  work.  Neither  the  method  nor  the  conclusions  of 
M.  Taine  will  be  followed  ;  but  no  writer  who  essayed  to 
deal  with  the  problems  of  government  in  France  at  the 
close  of  the  nineteenth  century  could  be  indifferent  to  the 
philosopher  who,  more  than  any  one  person,  has  modified 
the  aspect  of  the  French  Revolution.  M.  Taine's  influ- 
ence has  been  of  a  peculiar  character.  The  movement  and 
the  resulting  phenomena  which  he  criticised  were  hastened 
by  the  critical  spirit  of  the  philosophers  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  But  their  works,  considering  the  smallness  of 
the  educated  class  at  that  period  and  the  dearness  of 
books,  were  very  widely  read.  The  minor  but  more 
democratic  Revolution  of  1848  was,  as  we  have  seen, 
influenced  by  the  publication  of  Lamartine's  GHrondins, 
of  which  the  circulation  was  prodigious,  edition  after 
edition  being  read  with  greater  avidity  than  was  ever 
excited  by  any  romance,  though  that  was  the  happy 
epoch  when  novels  were  interesting. 

The  lot  of  M.  Taine's  great  work  has  not  been  the 
1  Lettxe  k  M.  Havet  du  24  Mare,  1878. 


CH.  I  THE  INFLUENCE   OF  M.    TAINE'S   WORK  89 

same.  It  stands  on  the  shelf  of  every  library,  yet  it  is 
possible  that  in  twenty  years  not  more  than  two  or  three 
thousand  Frenchmen  have  read  the  six  volumes  from 
beginning  to  end.  For  the  author  was  forced  by  the 
nature  of  his  investigation  to  depart  from  the  graceful 
style  which  had  charmed  into  insensibly  studying  some 
of  the  most  profound  problems  of  philosophy  the  idlest 
readers  of  his  early  works.  Almost  any  of  them  one  can 
read  under  a  tree  on  a  sunny  day  with  as  much  ease  as 
a  volume  of  Voltaire  or  of  Diderot,  or,  if  in  romantic 
mood,  as  Lamartine's  legendary  history,  and  with  less 
cerebral  fatigue  than  a  modern  novel,  psychological  or 
naturalist.  But  the  Origines  de  la  France  Contempo- 
raine  is  a  treatise  which  demands  attentive  perusal  such 
as  only  the  student  can  bestow  ;  though  no  modern  work 
so  richly  rewards  the  explorer  who  finds  in  it  the  record 
of  the  period,  drawn  from  contemporary  chronicles  and 
forgotten  archives,^  describing  the  life  and  agitation  in 
village,  market-town,  and  city,  with  the  ideas  and  pas- 
sions which  moved  to  action  peasant  and  artisan,  bour- 
geois and  functionary,  all  arranged  with  that  classification 
and  analysis  of  which  Taine  was  the  master.  Thus  the 
production  of  this  work  had  no  resounding  effect  in  the 
streets  or  in  Parliament.  No  election  was  ever  affected 
by  it,  no  act  of  the  legislature  can  be  referred  to  it,  and 
it  has  rarely  influenced  the  political  action  of  a  citizen  of 
France.     Yet  it  deserves  the  epithet  epoch-marking  more 

1  M.  Taine  has  been  censured  by  his  critics  for  making  use  of  obscure 
contemporary  authorities  whose  testimony  is  of  doubtful  value,  but  as  he 
once  said  to  me,  when  talking  about  the  best  method  of  studying  history, 
"II  n'y  a  pas  de  mauvais  documents."  The  value  of  a  contemporary 
record  in  the  hands  of  a  historian  depends  less  on  the  character  or  position 
of  the  writer  than  on  the  use  made  of  it  by  its  discoverer. 


90      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

than  any  book  which  this  generation  has  seen,  for  the 
most  striking  tendency  in  French  opinion  during  the  last 
quarter  of  the  century  is  the  change  of  mental  attitude 
towards  the  Revolution ;  and  if  the  thunderings  and 
lightnings  and  noise  of  the  trumpet  have  lost  theii 
Sinaitic  prestige,  so  that  the  great  convulsion  is  now 
regarded  merely  as  a  historical  phenomenon  like  the 
Wars  of  Religion  under  the  last  of  the  Valois,  or  the 
reorganisation  of  France  by  the  Kings  who  came  next, 
that  result  is  chiefly  due  to  the  intellectual  effort  of  one 
sedentary  philosopher. 

IV 

Though  M.  Taine  did  not  anticipate  that  his  work 
would  influence  the  government  or  administration  of 
France  in  his  lifetime,  one  immediate  effect  of  his  criti- 
cism was  the  vehement  defence  of  the  Revolution  by 
some  of  its  more  extreme  champions.  The  centenary  of 
the  events  succeeding  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  had  arrived, 
and  M.  Sardou  in  1891,  prematurely  celebrating  the  close 
of  the  Terror,  produced  at  the  Theatre  Frangais  a  play 
entitled  Thermidor,  representing  the  downfall  of  Robes- 
pierre in  the  month  of  1794  which  bore  that  name  in  the 
Revolutionary  Calendar.  The  House  of  Moli^re  belongs 
to  the  State,  and  the  Terrorists  were  not  amiably  depicted 
by  the  Academician,  so  the  Radicals  pressed  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  Republic  not  to  allow  scenes  of  the  Revolu- 
tion to  be  held  up  to  scorn  on  the  national  stage.  In  the 
Chamber  M.  Clemenceau  demanded  the  interdiction  of 
the  piece  in  one  of  those  improvised  harangues  in  which 
he  used  to  display  the  keen  edge  of  his  trenchant  talent, 


OH.  I  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   "BLOCK"  91 

declaring  that  the  Monarchists  who  applauded  the  drama 
had  become  Dantonists  in  their  desire  to  have  Robespierre 
held  up  to  reprobation,  and  adding,  "the  Revolution  is  a 
block  from  which  nothing  can  be  taken  away."^ 

Apart  from  the  question  of  representing  scenes  of 
recent  history  at  a  national  theatre,  there  was  much  to 
be  said  for  M.  Clemenceau's  theory  of  the  "block."  The 
difficulty  of  applying  it  to  a  proper  appreciation  of  the 
French  Revolution  is  that  no  two  admirers  of  that  move- 
ment are  agreed  as  to  the  composition  of  the  "block." 
Where  did  the  Revolution  end?  or  where  ought  it  to 
have  ended  to  merit  the  praises  of  right-thinking  men? 
Are  we  to  reprobate  Robespierre  and  approve  the  acts  of 
Danton,  or  are  our  tears  to  be  reserved  for  the  untimely 
end  of  the  Girondins  ?  Macaulay,  as  we  have  seen,  seemed 
to  think  that  if  the  Convention  had  stopped  at  the  deposi- 
tion of  the  king  it  would  have  carried  out  a  praiseworthy 
revolution  on  a  wholesome  English  model.  Mme.  de 
Stael,  whose  writings  had  a  great  influence  on  the  Lib- 
erals under  the  Restoration  in  their  interpretation  of  the 
Revolution,  conceived  that  its  proper  term  was  1791, 
when,  but  for  the  Emigration,  a  constitutional  monarchy 
might  have  been  possible  ;  so,  as  the  Restoration  pro- 
duced that  admirable  British  institution,  1814  was  the 
direct  sequence  of  1791,  and  all  that  occurred  in  the 
interval  were  illegitimate  additions  to  the  great  Revo- 
lution.2  The  Radicals  who  applauded  M.  Clemenceau's 
theory  of  the  "block"  intimated  their  approval  of  the 
Terror,  and  in  defending  the  memory  of  Robespierre 
showed  their  adherence  to  the  popular  idea  that  he  was 

1  Chambre  des  D^put^,  29  Janvier,  1891. 

*  Considerations  sur  la  HevoliUion  Fran^aise  (1818). 


92  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

a  democrat  with  a  thirst  for  blood.  But  the  more  light 
there  is  thrown  on  his  grim  figure  the  more  clear  it 
seems  that  he  aimed  at  being  a  politician  of  the  type 
known  under  the  Third  Republic  as  "a  man  of  govern- 
ment," and  therefore  opposed  to  the  views  generally  held 
by  his  modern  partisans  of  the  Extreme  Left.  Napoleon 
believed  that  his  intention  was  to  re-establish  order  after 
destroying  all  the  revolutionary  factions  ;  but  while  he 
thus  appreciated  the  character  of  Robespierre,  to  whom 
he  owed  his  early  opportunities,  the  career  of  General 
Bonaparte  might  have  been  restricted  had  the  Terrorist 
chief  survived,  for,  if  he  were  not  playing  for  his  own 
hand,  he  probably  contemplated  the  restoration  of  the 
Comte  de  Provence.  Some  day,  perhaps,  the  correspond- 
ence between  Robespierre  and  the  future  king  will  reveal 
the  real  reason  for  Louis  XVIII. 's  favourable  opinion  of 
him.  Meanwhile,  we  know  that  it  was  he  who  began  the 
reaction  ;  and  though  Royalist  heads  fell  wholesale  in  the 
Terror,  the  most  conspicuous  victims  were  the  leaders  of 
the  revolutionary  groups,  Feuillants,  Girondins,  Corde- 
liers, H^bertists,  and  Dantonists  being  in  turn  sent  to  the 
scaffold  by  Robespierre.^ 

1  The  testimony  is  chiefly  circumstantial  which  supports  the  theory 
that  Robespierre  was  not  the  victim  of  Reaction,  but  was  destroyed  as  a 
Reactionary  by  the  surviving  Revolutionaries,  who  saw  that  their  turn 
was  coming.  Napoleon's  strong  view  on  the  subject  is  found  in  the 
Memorial  de  Sainte-Helene  and  in  the  Belation  du  Docteur  O'Meara. 
It  seems  probable  that  most  of  the  documentary  evidence  was  destroyed. 
Courtois,  a  regicide  member  of  the  Convention,  was  charged  with  the 
examination  of  the  papers  of  Robespierre  after  his  fall,  but  the  report  he 
drew  up  in  1794  was  considered  by  Robespierre's  sister  to  be  a  mendacious 
compilation.  Courtois  had,  however,  all  his  correspondence,  and  seems  to 
liave  given  up  to  the  First  Consul  the  letters  he,  when  General  Bonaparte, 
had  written  to  Robespierre.  Courtois  was  exiled  after  the  Restoration, 
but  M.  Decazes,  the  favourite  and  minister  of  Louis  XVIII.,  was  sent 


CH.  I  THE  DOCTRINE  OP  LATENT  R]6gIMES  93 

The  Republicans  who  survived  did  not  make  a  signal 
success  of  the  Directory,  which  led  up  to  the  most 
momentous  of  all  the  phases  of  the  Revolution.  The 
Coup  d'Etat  of  Brumaire,  when  Bonaparte,  returning 
from  Egypt  at  the  end  of  1799,  seized  the  supreme 
power,  was  so  far  the  most  important  portion  of  the 
revolutionary  "  block "  that  it  cannot  be  dealt  with 
in  passing  mention.  But,  before  observing  its  effect, 
we  will  pass  for  a  moment  to  later  events  in  the  history 
of  France  which  have  been  deemed  to  form  part  of  the 
Revolution.  The  Restoration  was  hailed  by  Mme.  de 
Stael  as  the  consummation  of  the  upheaval  of  1789. 
But  1830  supervened,  when  with  the  definite  triumph 
of  the  middle-class,  as  Tocqueville  said,  "  The  first  period 
of  the  Revolution  ended,  for  there  has  been  only  one 
Revolution,  the  beginning  of  which  our  fathers  saw, 
and  of  which  we  are  not  likely  to  see  the  end."i  The 
downfall  of  the  Monarchy  of  July  produced  the  demo- 
cratic phase  of  the  Revolution,  the  tangible  result  of 
which  was  the  Second  Empire,  created  by  the  first  exer- 

after  him,  just  before  his  death  in  1816,  and  got  from  him  twenty  letters 
written  by  the  future  King  to  Robespierre.  Mile.  Robespierre  had  a 
pension  granted  to  her  by  Bonaparte  when  First  Consul,  which  was  con- 
tinued by  Louis  XVIII.  till  1823,  when  it  was  stopped  for  some  reason 
connected  with  the  Courtois  papers. 

^  Souvenirs  d'' Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  partie  1.  This  idea  is  constantly 
found  in  his  writings.  In  the  second  part  of  his  Souvenirs  he  returns  to 
it  in  his  reflections  on  the  Revolution  of  1848.  After  each  change  of 
government  up  till  then,  he  writes,  "  It  was  said  that  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, having  accomplished  its  work,  was  finished,  .  .  .  and  here  it  is 
beginning  afresh.  Shall  we  ever  annve  at  a  social  transformation  more 
complete  than  that  which  our  fathers  wanted,  or  are  we  merely  on  the 
road  to  that  intermittent  anarchy,  the  well-known  and  incurable  malady 
of  old  peoples  ?  I  often  ask  if  this  land,  which  we  have  been  seeking  for 
so  long,  exists,  or  if  our  destiny  is  not  to  plough  the  sea  eternally?" 
(1860.) 


94  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

cise  of  manhood  suffrage.  That  regime  gave  way  to 
the  Republic,  not  from  the  movement  of  opinion  in  the 
direction  of  Republicanism,  though  there  were  signs 
of  such  a  tendency  before  the  War,  but  in  consequence 
of  military  disaster,  and  the  subsequent  inability  of  the 
monarchical  parties  to  concert  any  other  form  of  gov- 
ernment. 

The  more  emphatic  admirers  of  the  violent  portions 
of  the  first  Revolution,  including  most  of  those  who 
specially  resent  the  conclusions  of  M.  Taine,  have  a 
theory  that  the  Republic  is  the  sole  legitimate  offspring 
of  the  Revolution.  It  was  ingeniously  expounded  by  an 
eloquent  successor  of  the  Jacobins,  M.  Challemel-Lacour, 
whose  character  much  more  resembled  that  of  Robespierre 
than  did  that  of  the  Radicals,  who  disliked  his  authorita- 
tive temperament.  At  the  centenary  of  the  First  Republic 
he  asserted  that  "  the  Republic,  since  September  22,  1792, 
had  not  ceased  for  a  single  moment  to  live  its  latent 
life  as  a  government  in  reserve  for  the  salvation  of  the 
country."^  No  doubt  it  was  pleasing  for  Republicans 
to  feel  that  the  regime  of  their  preference  had  never 
ceased  to  exist  since  it  was  set  up  three  weeks  after 
the  Massacres  of  September  ;  but  the  doctrine  of  latent 
existence  had  often  been  applied  by  their  adherents  to 
other  intermittent  forms  of  government  in  France.  It 
was  originally  borrowed  from  England,  where  the  public 
acts  of  Cromwell  officially  belong  to  the  first  decade 
of  the  reign  of  Charles  II.,  and  there  the  permanent 
re-establishment  of  the  monarchy  justified  the  fiction. 
In  France  it  has  been  used  since  the  Revolution  with 
less  success.  It  was  the  basis  of  Mme.  de  Stael's  idea 
1  Discours  au  Pantheon,  22  Septembre,  1892. 


CH.  1  THE   DOCTRINE   OF  LATENT  REGIMES  95 

that  the  governments  between  the  abolition  of  royalty 
and  the  Restoration  were  of  no  account,  and  it  was 
adopted  by  the  Comte  de  Provence,  who  accordingly  was 
deemed  to  have  inherited  the  crown  on  the  death  of  his 
nephew  in  the  Temple,  five  months  before  the  Directory 
came  into  being  :  so  General  Bonaparte  won  the  battle  of 
Rivoli,  and  the  Emperor  Napoleon  that  of  Jena,  in  the 
second  and  twelfth  years,  respectively,  of  Louis  XVIII. 's 
reign.  1  Louis  Napoleon,  when  in  1852  the  Senators 
and  Deputies  brought  the  news  to  him  that  the  plebis- 
cite had  made  him  Emperor,  recognised  the  prevalence 
of  the  doctrine,  and  felt  constrained  modestly  to  say  to 
them,  "  My  reign  does  not  date  from  1815,  but  only 
from  this  moment  of  your  announcement  of  the  will  of 
the  nation.  "2  Nevertheless  in  styling  himself,  by  acci- 
dent or  design.  Napoleon  III.,  he  signified  that  the 
Empire  had  continued  in  the  person  of  the  Due  de 
Reichstadt,  who  until  his  death  at  Schoenbrunn  in  1832 
was  the  second  Napoleon  of  the  dynasty.  The  idea  of 
the  Republic,  ever  latent  under  all  other  forms  of  gov- 
ernment, is  indicated  by  certain  journals  of  the  Extreme 
Left,  which  are  still  dated  according  to  the  Revolu- 
tionary Calendar,  whereof  the  Year  One  began  on  the 
day  commemorated  by  M.  Challemel-Lacour ;  but  the 
principle  underlying  it  is  dangerous  to  apply  to  an 
existing  regime  in  France,  as  it  suggests  the  possibility 

1  Louis  XVII.  died  June,  1795 :  Rivoli  was  fought  in  January,  1797,  and 
Jena  in  October,  1806. 

!*  St.  Cloud,  December  1, 1852.  The  same  week  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
Lord  Malmesbury,  who  was  a  personal  friend  of  Louis  Napoleon  as  well 
as  Foreign  Secretary,  took  pains  to  explain  that  the  title  "  Napoleon  III." 
implied  no  pretension  to  Imperial  heredity  contrary  to  the  Declaration  of 
the  Congress  of  Vienna. 


90      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

of  its  resuming  its  state  of  latency,  while  another  under- 
ground stream  bubbles  up  for  a  visible  course. 

Thus  there  is  no  harmony  of  opinion  either  as  to  the 
limits  of  the  French  Revolution,  or  as  to  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment which  was  peculiarly  its  offspring.  If  the  ex- 
treme view  of  Tocqueville  be  taken,  we  may  consider  the 
Revolution  still  in  full  operation  more  than  a  century 
after  its  start.  But  a  century  after  the  assembly  of  the 
States-General  it  is  not  easy  to  distinguish  which  social 
phenomena  are  the  result  of  the  national  upheaval,  and 
which  the  result  of  the  general  progress  of  civilisation  in 
the  human  race.  Our  English  fathers  considered  the 
revolutionary  period  to  have  ended  with  the  second 
entry  of  the  Allies  into  Paris  in  1815,^  and  the  inclusion 
in  it  of  the  First  Empire  is  adopted  by  modern  admirers 
of  the  Napoleonic  legend  who  regard  its  events  from  a 
very  different  point  of  view.  It  is  impossible  to  take 
a  date  or  a  crisis,  and  to  say  that  this  was  the  boundary 
of  the  Revolution  proper.  The  twenty  years  from  the 
fall  of  the  Bastille  to  the  battle  of  Wagram  perhaps  con- 
stitute a  term  convenient  to  be  regarded  as  the  revolution- 
ary period,  as  they  include  both  the  epoch  of  disintegra- 
tion, which  alone  did  not  constitute  the  Revolution,  and 
the  succeeding  season  of  reorganisation.    From  1809  there 

1  A  copious  work  in  two  large  volumes  was  published  at  the  end  of  the 
reign  of  George  III.,  by  "  Hewson  Clarke,  Esq.,"  which,  though  without 
literary  value,  is  a  storehouse  of  curious  contemporary  information  on 
the  events  in  France,  the  British  Isles,  and  Europe  during  the  previous 
thirty  years.  Fkknch  Revolution  is  the  most  conspicuous  line  of  the 
title-page,  which  sets  forth  that  it  is  "An  impartial  History  of  the  naval, 
military,  and  political  events  in  Europe  from  the  commencement  of  the 
French  Revolution  to  the  entrance  of  the  Allies  into  Paris,  including 
biographical  memoirs  of  Buonaparte  and  a  narrative  of  the  progress  of 
that  Revolution  to  the  conclusion  of  a  general  peace." 


CH.  I  THE   REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD  97 

was  no  more  constructive  policy  accomplished  by  the  re- 
constructor  of  France.  The  glories  of  the  Empire  for  a 
moment  continued  to  expand,  but  the  wars  and  alliances 
had  now  departed  from  their  revolutionary  basis,  and  had 
become  the  tools  of  a  conqueror's  ambition. 


If  the  day  be  past  of  sentimental  enthusiasm  for  the 
French  Revolution,  its  close  study,  while  revealing  the 
unheroic  horrors  of  the  period,  convinces  the  impartial 
student  that  it  was  inevitable.  The  pitiless  narrative 
of  Taine  displays  how  swift  was  anarchy  to  follow  the 
first  movement,  and  how  its  violent  expansion  through- 
out the  land  was  turned  to  the  profit  of  the  disorderly 
and  marauding  classes.  But  the  material  did  not  exist 
in  France  to  stem  the  flood  of  anarchy,  once  it  had  begun 
to  overflow.  In  no  other  revolution  did  ideas  or  abstrac- 
tions play  so  large  a  part,  and  this  was  why  its  early 
stages  appeared  grandiose  to  the  imagination  ;  but  man 
is  not  an  abstract  being,  and  theoretical  ideas  alone  could 
not  cause  a  revolution,  even  in  a  community  imbued  with 
the  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Revolu- 
tion was  intensified  by  the  preaching  and  application  of 
crude  doctrine,  but  its  cause  was  the  financial  disorder  of 
the  State  and  the  oppressive  incidence  of  taxation.  It 
was  inevitable  because  of  the  immense  misery  and  discon- 
tent caused,  first,  by  the  mismanagement  of  the  public 
finances  together  with  the  extravagance  of  the  Govern- 
ment and  the  Court,  and,  secondly,  by  the  ever  increasing 
multitude  of  privileged  persons  whose  exemption  from 


98      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  t 

taxation  threw  the  burden  more  grievously  on  the  poorest 
portion  of  the  population. 

The  suppression  of  that  system  of  privilege  was  the 
chief  object  of  the  Revolution.  It  destroyed  at  the  same 
time  the  last  vestiges  of  feudalism  ;  but,  as  was  remarked 
by  a  witness  of  1789,  Chancellor  Pasquier,  so  little  re- 
mained of  feudality  that  it  had  become  an  almost  mean- 
ingless word,  the  one  question  in  dispute  between  the 
nobility  and  other  citizens  being  that  of  pecuniary  privi- 
lege.^ Moreover  the  persons  enjoying  it  were  not  all 
members  of  an  exclusive,  high-born,  or  territorial  caste, 
or  merely  the  absentee  courtiers  of  Versailles  devouring 
the  substance  of  their  dependents  in  the  luxurious  royal 
circle.  Every  year,  in  all  parts  of  France,  persons  of 
obscure  origin  were  invested  with  dignities,  sometimes 
in  virtue  of  judicial  or  municipal  ofl&ce,  sometimes  by 
purchase,  which  gave  them  noble  rank,  exempted  them 
from  taxation,  and  even  accorded  them  the  right  to  exact 
dues  from  the  most  heavily  burdened  section  of  the  Third 
Estate.  This  wholesale  multiplication  of  petty  nobility 
accounts  for  the  great  number  of  families  still  surviving 
in  France  which  claim  a  noble  origin  of  date  anterior  to 
the  lavish  creations  of  unprivileged  titles  under  the  Em- 
pire. Moreover,  without  being  ennobled,  a  large  propor- 
tion of  the  bourgeoisie  most  capable  of  paying,  including 
public  functionaries  and  lawyers,  as  well  ^s  the  inhabi- 
tants of  certain  towns,  enjoyed  greater  or  less  exemption. 
Thus  the  heaviest  imposts  fell  on  the  labourers,  who  had 
no  possession  save  their  tools  and  their  hands,  on  the  in- 
habitants of  the  miserable  villages  of  the  Old  Regime,  and 
on  the  small  proprietors  who  cultivated  their  own  plots 
1  M&moires  du  Chancelier  Pasquier,  vol.  i. 


CH.  1      THE  SWIFT  DIFFUSION  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  99 

of  ground.  For  it  was  not  the  Revolution  which  made 
the  peasant  a  land-owner  ;  during  the  whole  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century  he  had  acquired  the  soil,  with  a  passionate 
craving,  clad  in  rags  and  concealing  his  hoard  from  the 
tax-collector  till  the  occasion  offered  when  he  could  buy- 
cheaply  a  scrap  of  land. 

The  question  of  the  right  to  levy  taxes  and  of  their 
incidence  has  in  various  forms  had  great  effect  on  the 
history  of  revolutions  in  both  hemispheres,  and  here  it 
touched  the  population  in  every  corner  of  the  realm. 
The  grievance  was  so  wide-spread  that  it  produced  a  gen- 
eral popular  movement,  a  phenomenon  so  rare  in  France 
that  it  has  never  since  been  repeated,  though  revolutions 
have  changed  its  forms  of  government,  and  plebiscites 
have  recorded  temporary  phases  of  opinion.  The  univer- 
sal diffusion  of  the  wrong  accounts  for  the  swiftness  with 
which  the  Revolution  spread  at  an  epoch  when  news  trav- 
elled slowly.  Even  a  generation  later,  when  M.  Jules 
Simon  first  came  to  Paris  from  Brittany  under  the  Resto- 
ration, it  took  as  long  to  travel  from  Brest  to  the  capital 
as  is  now  taken  in  going  from  that  port  to  America,  in  so 
primitive  a  state  had  the  great  Revolution  left  provincial 
France.  Of  the  slow  circulation  of  news  while  it  was  in 
operation  we  have  a  witness  from  England.  When  the 
Bastille  fell,  Arthur  Young  was  travelling  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine,  and  a  fortnight  later  came  to  Besangon.  "  From 
Strasbourg  hither,"  he  writes  on  July  27,  1789,  "  I  have 
not  been  able  to  see  a  newspaper.  For  what  the  country 
knows  to  the  contrary  their  deputies  are  in  the  Bastille 
instead  of  the  Bastille  being  razed,  so  the  mob  plunder, 
burn,  and  destroy  in  complete  ignorance."  Thence  he 
crossed   Burgundy,  hearing  of   chateaux   being  fired   or 


100     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

sacked,  and  inquiring  whether  it  were  the  work  of  peas- 
ants or  of  brigands,  yet  when  he  reached  Moulins,  at  the 
best  house-of-call  he  "  might  as  well  have  demanded  an 
elephant  as  a  newspaper.  In  the  capital  of  a  great  prov- 
vince,  with  a  National  Assembly  voting  a  revolution,  not 
a  newspaper  to  inform  the  people  whether  Fayette,  Mira- 
beau,  or  Louis  XVI.  is  on  the  throne." 

All  the  doctrines  of  Rousseau  and  of  the  philosophers 
would  not  have  carried  the  insurrection  beyond  the  walls 
of  Paris  and  the  great  towns,  but  for  the  universal  unhap- 
piness  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  France  caused 
by  the  fiscal  system.  Its  oppressiveness  made  the  people 
welcome  anarchy  and  join  with  the  marauding  class  in 
their  work  of  rapine,  while  the  representatives  of  the  nation 
in  the  capital  were  making  the  anarchy  irremediable  by 
their  work  of  demolition.  Here  and  there  in  the  annals  of 
the  Constituent  and  Legislative  assemblies  some  construc- 
tive act  is  recorded,  sometimes  of  permanent  value,  but  the 
words  which  perpetually  meet  the  eye  in  them  are  "  sup- 
pression," "abolition,"  and  "suspension."  Many  of  the 
men  of  1789  began  their  work  inspired  with  noble  motives, 
but  they  neglected  the  precaution  which  the  most  elemen- 
tary architects  even  among  primitive  peoples  observe,  not 
to  destroy  the  foundations  of  a  fabric  which  it  is  intended 
to  remodel  if  it  has  to  be  inhabited  during  the  reconstruc- 
tion. To  the  ruin  of  the  edifice  of  central  government 
was  added  the  confusion  of  a  people  in  insurrection  ;  and 
while  rhetoricians  frothed  at  the  top  of  the  seething  soci- 
ety, its  dregs  were  an  active  element  in  the  angry  fermen- 
tation which  stirred  up  the  whole  intermediate  mass. 
France,  with  all  its  splendid  tradition  and  civilisation, 
could  not  have  escaped  extinction  in  this  overwhelming 


CH.  I      THE  PATRIOTIC  PHASE   OF  THE   REVOLUTION         101 

and  inexorable  cataclysm,  but  for  an  influence  which  at 
first  aggravated  its  horrors. 

VI 

On  the  11th  of  July,  1792,  the  country  was  declared  in 
danger,  and  to  intimidate  the  foreign  invader  was  made 
the  excuse  for  every  species  of  blood-stained  excess. 
But  though  soon,  in  the  words  of  its  apologist,  "the 
guillotine  was  the  only  institution  in  France  and  the 
government  was  the  scaffold,  "^  the  king  being  followed 
to  it  by  his  judges  as  well  as  by  droves  of  innocent 
victims,  and  though  humanitarian  philosophy  had  led  to 
such  depths  of  inhuman  ferocity  that  to  see  unfortunates 
sent  to  execution  was  a  spectacle  to  which  the  mothers 
of  Paris  brought  their  children, ^  another  current  of 
sentiment  was  running,  which  though  fierce  was  not 
debased.  The  battalion  of  Marseillais,  which  passing 
through  Paris  on  the  way  to  the  frontier  was  utilised  by 
Danton  and  Marat  in  the  carnage  of  the  Tuileries  on  the 
day  of  the  downfall  of  the  Monarchy,  brought  with  it 
the  song  which,  though  composed  in  Alsace  by  a  native 
of  Franche-Comt^,^  has  for  ever  associated  the  name  of 
Marseilles  with  the  most  thrilling  battle-cry  of  patriotism 
ever  called  forth  by  national  peril.     Here  we  see   the 

1  Lamartine,  Histoire  des  Oirondins,  livre  52, 

*  The  famous  tricoteuses  who  used  to  attend  the  sittings  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal  did  so  by  virtue  of  the  Decree  of  "6  Nivdse  An  II." 
(December  26,  1793),  passed  in  the  middle  of  the  Terror,  which  provided 
that  "les  femmes  pourraient  assister  aux  stances  avec  leurs  maris  et  leurs 
enfants  et  y  tricoter." 

8  Rouget  de  Lisle,  who  was  born  in  the  Jura,  composed  the  "  Marseil- 
laise" at  Strasbourg  in  April,  1792,  and  it  was  brought  to  Paris  by  the 
Marseillais  who  took  part  in  the  sack  of  the  Tuileries  on  August  10,  1792. 


MBHARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SANTA  BARBARA 


102  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FR^VNCE  bk.  i 

double  phase  of  the  Revolution.  The  volunteers  who 
massacred  the  nobles  and  the  Swiss  Guard  and  sacked 
the  palace  were  mere  murderous  insurgents ;  but  march- 
ing to  meet  the  Prussians  at  Valmy  and  Jemmapes  they 
were  ennobled  into  saviours  of  their  country.  To  have 
taken  part  in  those  two  victories  of  the  Revolution  was 
the  greatest  pride  of  Louis  Philippe,  whose  valour  on 
those  fields  as  the  youthful  Due  de  Chartres,  distin- 
guished his  revolutionary  renown  from  the  sinister  record 
of  his  father,  Philippe  Egalit^,^  chiefly  associated  with 
the  deeds  of  Convention,  though  he  too  had  taken  part 
in  military  operations  on  the  frontier. 

The  grandeur  of  the  Revolution  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  had  witnessed  it,  or  had  received  its  tradition  from 
actors  in  it,  would  not  have  been  apparent  without  its 
patriotic  aspect  and  its  military  glory.  The  disciples 
of  the  men  of  1789,  who  deplored  the  violence  of  the 
subsequent  period,  might  say  that  in  addition  to  abolish- 
ing the  Old  Regime  with  its  iniquitous  fiscal  system 
(which  was  a  high  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  mankind), 
they  enunciated  principles  so  exalted  that  the  issue  of 
the  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man  sufficed  to  glorify 
the  movement  as  the  era  of  a  perfect  gospel.  But  beauty 
of  sentiment  flourished  equally  in  conjunction  with  the 
most  violent  and  cruel  phases  of  the  Revolution.  As 
Lamartine  said  of  the  Constitution  drawn  up  by  Robes- 
pierre as  a  prelude  to  the  Terror,  "  it  recalled  the  pastoral 

^  The  Due  d'Aumale,  who,  unlike  some  of  his  less  distinguished  rela- 
tives, did  not  disclaim  the  revolutionary  tradition  of  his  family,  was  fond 
of  relating  the  story  of  his  father's  visit  to  Danton,  when  Dumouriez  sent 
him  to  Paris  to  bear  the  news  of  Valmy  to  the  Convention.  "  Jeune 
homme,"  said  Danton  to  the  young  Louis  Philippe,  "ne  vous  milez  pas 
de  politique.    Laissez  nous  faire  cette  besogne  et  retoumez  k,  I'arm^." 


CH.  I    THE  UN  WARLIKE   PHASE  OF  THE   REVOLUTION      103 

republics  of  Plato  or  of  Telemachus ;  God  and  the  people, 
justice  and  humanity,  inspiring  every  page  of  it."^  In 
nobility  of  principle  the  moderate  men  of  '89  have  no 
advantage  over  the  Jacobins  of  '93,  and  it  was  the 
improvident  destructiveness  of  the  former  and  their 
incapacity  to  govern  which  delivered  the  destinies  of 
France  into  the  hands  of  the  Terrorists ;  for  the  anarchy 
which  reigned  for  ten  years  was  the  immediate  effect  of 
the  precipitate  overthrow  of  the  ancient  authorities,  and 
the  insufficiency  and  the  discord  of  the  new  rulers. 

If  France  had  not  been  delivered  from  that  anarchy  by 
the  indirect  means  of  exterior  military  conquest,  and 
reorganised  by  the  same  instrument,  little  would  have 
been  heard  of  the  grandeur  of  the  French  Revolution, 
though  some  of  the  most  ecstatic  in  its  praise  are  those 
who  most  deplore  the  means  which  made  it  glorious  and 
fashioned  out  of  its  chaos  a  new  France.  From  the  life 
of  Barere  and  its  laudatory  treatment  by  Hippolyte 
Carnot,  some  idea  may  be  gathered  of  what  the  Revolu- 
tion would  have  been  like  without  its  military  aspect. 
It  is  clear  that  a  servile,  cruel,  and  cowardly  profligate 
was  accounted  one  of  its  heroes  by  the  son  of  one  of  the 
few  who  had  brought  lustre  on  the  Revolution.  But 
military  glory  was  the  sole  title  to  eminence  of  the  name 
bequeathed  to  Hippolyte  Carnot.  As  a  regicide,  as  a 
member  of  the  Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and  as  a 
Director,  Lazare  Carnot  would  have  been  less  remem- 
bered than  his  colleague  Barras,  not  having  had  the 
conspicuous  vices  of  that  other  worthy  of  the  un warlike 
phases  of  the  Revolution.  But  as  "the  Organiser  of 
Victory"  he  handed  down  a  legend  which  marked  out 
1  Histoire  des  Girondins,  livre  39. 


104  THE   REVOLUTION  AND   MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

his  estimable  grandson  to  represent  France  before  Europe, 
when  the  Third  Republic  was  bringing  discredit  on 
democratic  institutions,  and  to  save  it,  it  was  necessary 
to  show  that  there  were  revolutionary  traditions  neither 
sordid  nor  disorderly. 

Not  long  after  M.  Sadi  Carnot's  election  to  the  Presi- 
dency an  appreciation  of  the  Revolution  was  made  in  its 
centenary  year,  remarkable  for  the  circumstances  under 
which  it  was  uttered  by  one  of  the  most  authoritative 
voices  of  France.  A  talented  man  of  letters,  in  his 
political  capacity  an  ardent  Republican,  M.  Claretie,  the 
Director  of  the  Th^dtre  Frangais,  was  received  at  the 
French  Academy  by  M.  Renan.  They  had  first  met  at 
the  house  of  Michelet,  whose  exclusion  from  that  eminent 
company  is  regretted  by  many  who  have  not  for  the  elo- 
quent historian's  revolutionary  enthusiasm  the  sympathy 
of  M.  Claretie.  M.  Renan,  whose  iconoclasm  was  usu- 
ally applied  to  legends  of  origin  earlier  than  1789,  might 
have  been  expected  to  treat  the  Revolution  with  the 
mellifluous  optimism,  or  gentle  irony,  which  he  usually 
extended  to  modern  subjects,  but  departing  from  his 
wonted  style  he  thus  addressed  the  new  Academician: 
"If  we  turn  away  from  the  grandiose  fatality  of  the 
Revolution,  all  that  is  left  is  odious  and  horrible  :  a 
nameless  orgie,  a  monstrous  fray  into  which  madmen, 
incapables,  and  miscreants  rush,  told  by  their  instinct 
that  their  opportunity  is  come,  and  that  victory  is  for 
the  most  repulsive  of  mankind.  Every  crime  and  every 
insanity  seem  to  have  united  to  produce  the  success  of 
the  Days  of  the  Revolution."  This  Avas  the  language  not 
of  an  improvised  polemic  in  the  lips  of  a  Reactionary,  but 
of  an  academical  discourse  pronounced  by  a  sage  whose 


CH.  I      THE   EFFECT  OF  WAR   ON  THE  REVOLUTION  105 

career  and  opinions  made  him  appear  to  be  a  son  of  the 
Revolution.  It  was  the  centenary  of  the  one  year  in  that 
epoch  which  unites  nearly  all  Frenchmen,  yet  M.  Renan 
having  deliberately  to  choose  his  phrases  and  to  submit 
them  to  his  colleagues  before  uttering  them,  deemed  it 
right  to  thus  express  himself  in  welcoming  to  the  Insti- 
tute the  friend  of  Michelet  and  the  eulogist  of  Camille 
Desmoulins.^ 

If  after  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.  the  European  coali- 
tion had  left  France  to  work  out  its  destiny  without 
interference,  the  Revolution  would  have  had  no  other 
aspect  in  the  eyes  of  posterity  than  that  which  pro- 
voked M.  Renan's  unwontedly  sombre  epithets.  Every- 
thing indicates  that  the  Jacobins,  after  devouring  the 
Girondins,  would  have  proceeded  to  prey  on  one  another, 
just  as  they  did  when  the  enemy  was  on  the  frontier. 
Nor  was  the  anarchy  which  desolated  the  land  aggravated 
by  the  exterior  troubles,  excepting  in  certain  limited 
regions.  Robespierre  might  have  restored  order  had  he 
been  given  a  free  hand,  but  that  is  an  impossible  hy- 

^  R^ponse  au  Discours  de  Reception  h.  I'Acad^mie  Frangaise  de  M. 
Jules  Claretie,  21  F^vrier,  1889.  The  submission  of  the  addresses  made 
on  these  occasions  to  a  committee  of  Academicians  chosen  by  lot  is  not 
always  a  mere  formality,  it  being  competent  for  the  committee  to  insist 
on  the  alteration  or  omission  of  passages  which  might  offend  the  political 
susceptibilities  of  members  of  the  Company.  Thus  M.  6mile  Ollivier, 
who  was  elected  in  1870,  never  pronounced  his  discourae  on  Lamartine,  — 
whom  he  succeeded,  —  as  he  refused  to  alter  in  it  certain  allusions  to  the 
Second  Empire,  which  were  not  considered  opportune,  the  war  having 
intervened  between  his  election  and  reception,  the  formal  ceremony  of 
the  latter  being  indefinitely  postponed.  The  same  fate  befell  his  pro- 
jected speech  when  he  was  designated  to  receive  M.  Henri  Martin  the 
historian  in  1878.  M.  Challemel-Lacour,  who  succeeded  to  Renan's 
chair,  evidently  did  not  forget  his  predecessor's  attack  on  the  Revolution, 
and  he  bitterly  criticised  him  in  his  Discours  de  Reception  in  January, 
1894. 


106     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

pothesis ;  with  no  other  weapon  than  his  civilian  blade  of 
the  guillotine  he  could  not  have  set  up  any  authoritative 
form  of  government  capable  of  working  usefully,  or  of 
surviving  the  horror  inspired  by  its  origin.  Events 
would  probably  have  followed  the  course  that  they 
actually  took  up  to  a  certain  point,  for  the  Directory, 
which  came  out  of  the  reaction  after  the  Reign  of  Terror, 
was  not  created  by  the  foreign  situation,  and  to  the 
interior  Revolution  must  be  wholly  ascribed  the  chaotic 
administration,  the  mismanagement  of  the  finances,  the 
dissoluteness  and  corruption  which  permeated  society. 
But  the  enmity  of  Europe  was  the  salvation  of  France  in 
the  dark  hours  of  the  closing  century ;  and  the  army  with 
its  valiant  achievements  alone  maintained  a  standard  of 
conduct  and  duty  in  the  disorganised  nation,  which 
instead  of  sinking  inextricably  into  the  demoralisation 
of  the  Directory,  was  raised  to  life  again  by  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  war. 

VII 

The  discipline  of  warfare  with  all  its  ills,  and  the 
exhilaration  of  conquest,  would  not  have  sufficed  to 
renew  the  life  of  France ;  but  the  battle-field  produced  a 
hero  and  a  captain  who  was  also  a  master  of  the  science 
of  government,  of  genius  never  surpassed.  The  French 
threw  themselves  into  the  arms  of  Bonaparte,  not  be- 
cause they  discerned  in  him  the  reorganiser  of  France, 
but  simply  as  the  glorious  young  conqueror  whose  mar- 
tial prestige  was  the  only  force  sufficient  to  save  the 
country  from  the  anarchy  of  the  Directory  and  from  civil 
war.     Thus,  on  landing  at  Frdjus  from  the  East  in  the 


CH.  I  THE  RISE  OF  BONAPARTE  107 


last  autumn  of  the  century,  his  progress  to  the  capital 
was  a  triumph,  the  victor  of  Areola  and  Rivoli,  the 
pacificator  of  Campo  Formio  who  had  given  Belgium  and 
the  Rhine  to  France,  being  hailed  as  liberator. 

Arrived  in  Paris  he  shuts  himself  up  beneath  his 
domestic  roof,  having  to  cultivate  acquaintance  with  his 
wife,  of  whom  he  has  not  seen  much  since  Barras  handed 
her  over  to  him  in  1795,  with  the  command  of  the  Army 
of  Italy  as  a  wedding-present.  Josephine  is  still  amiably 
grateful  to  the  protector  who  saved  her  from  the  guil- 
lotine, but  the  career  of  the  Director,  in  gallantry  as  in 
government,  is  nearly  done,  and  henceforth  Madame 
Bonaparte  will  be  a  relatively  respectable  wife  :  like 
another  handsome  adventuress  who,  under  dissimilar  cir- 
cumstances, attained  a  crown,  she  had  to  accomplish  the 
days  of  her  purification.  The  General  keeps  quiet  and 
calculates:  when  he  puts  on  a  uniform  it  is  not  that 
which  the  soldiers  of  France  have  followed  from  the 
Adige  to  the  Nile,  but  the  coat  with  the  green  palm- 
leaves  of  the  Institute,  for  his  colleagues  in  which 
learned  company  he  has  opened  up  the  mysteries  of 
Egypt.  But  though  he  does  not  obtrude  his  military 
prestige,  it  is  recognised  as  likely  to  be  a  useful  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  some  talented  Revolutionary,  who, 
as  civil  dictator,  would  restore  order.  Talleyrand  was 
intriguing;  so  was  his  rival  Fouch^;  so  was  Si^yds,  a 
regicide  like  the  latter,  an  apostate  priest  like  the  former, 
whose  career  was  not  destined  to  be  as  lucrative  as  that 
of  the  ex-bishop  of  Autun.  Meanwhile  he  was  a  Director 
at  the  head  of  affairs,  and  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
"To  save  France  a  sword  and  a  head  were  necessary." 
Si^y^s  was  willing  that  the  sword  should  be   that  of 


108     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    iik.  i 

Bonaparte,  but  the  events  which  succeeded  the  Coup 
d'Etat  of  Brumaire  were  a  revelation  to  the  contempo- 
raries of  the  young  general,  the  nature  of  whose  work  is 
not  universally  appreciated  even  by  posterity. 

Some  years  ago  I  was  travelling  towards  the  land 
where  the  last  hope  of  the  Bonapartes  fell  in  savage  war- 
fare while  wearing  the  uniform  of  the  army  which  crushed 
the  founder  of  his  dynast3\  At  the  early  close  of  a 
tropical  day  the  dark  rock  of  St.  Helena  rose  before  us 
in  the  sea.  At  sundown  the  ship  lay  at  anchor  in  the 
roadstead,  and  night  fell  on  the  island  with  sudden 
swiftness.  In  the  muffled  moonlight  of  a  cloudy  evening 
I  rode  across  the  hills  which  lie  between  Jamestown  and 
Longwood,  where  in  the  mean  house  upon  the  heights 
overlooking  the  wastes  of  ocean,  across  which  he  used 
to  gaze,  I  saw  by  dim  candle-light  the  bare  chamber  in 
which  Napoleon  died.  A  few  hours  later,  when  the  ship 
was  leaving  behind  the  grim  cliffs  in  their  solitude,  my 
impressions  of  the  lonely  ride,  which  was  weird  enough 
to  move  the  least  imaginative,  were  disturbed  by  the 
question  of  an  unsentimental  traveller,  a  Scottish  legis- 
lator, who  in  the  voice  of  common  sense  asked  who  was 
this  Bonaparte,  and  what  title  had  he  to  the  style  of 
Napoleon  the  Great  ?  had  any  of  his  works  survived  him 
save  a  record  of  suffering,  and  had  he  left  anything 
behind  him  but  a  name  as  barren  as  the  rock  vanishing 
in  our  wake  ? 

M.  Taine,  the  sternest  modern  critic  of  the  Emperor, 
had  already  answered  that  inquiry.  The  work  of  Napo- 
leon which  has  survived  him  is  modern  France.^  The 
sword  which  the  Abb6  Si^yes  deemed  might  clear  the 
^  Le  Regime  Moderne,  liv.  i.  c.  i. 


CH.  1  THE   SAVIOUR  OF  THE   REVOLUTION  109 

way  for  a  civil  dictator  had  performed  only  a  preliminary 
parade  in  Italy  and  in  the  Orient  of  the  feats  it  was 
about  to  accomplish  on  more  famous  fields,  from  Marengo 
to  Wagram.  But  the  soldier  whose  wielding  of  it  had 
only  just  begun  to  astonish  Europe,  in  the  interval 
between  two  expeditions,  which  any  other  commander 
would  have  found  too  brief  for  repose  or  for  technical 
study,  displayed  the  most  colossal  gifts  of  government 
and  organisation  ever  possessed  by  a  human  being.  A 
young  general  of  thirty,  of  alien  race,  who  had  learned  as 
a  foreign  tongue  the  language  of  the  people  he  was  to 
rule,  who  man  and  boy  had  lived  only  for  fourteen  years 
in  France,^  suddenly  appeared  and  being  called  in  to 
intimidate  misrule,  instead  of  returning  to  his  troops 
when  he  had  restored  order,  revealed  himself  by  his 
genius  as  the  master  and  the  chief  of  the  nation.  The 
soldier  of  fortune,  a  stranger  unversed  in  civil  life,  suc- 
ceeded where  philosophers,  lawyers,  and  politicians  had 
failed,  and  saved  the  great  movement,  which  had  swept 
away  the  old  Monarchy  and  the  Ancient  Regime,  from 
dissolving  the  French  nation  in  anarchy. 

While  residing  in  the  Brie  there  were  two  spots  I 
sometimes  passed,  in  that  beautiful  region  on  the  south 
of  Paris,  which  seemed  to  mark  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  the  astounding  epoch  wherein  modern  France  was 
made,  though  their  historical  interest  is  forgotten.     They 

1  Between  Bonaparte's  first  arrival  in  France  in  December,  1778,  at 
the  age  of  nine  years  and  four  months  (when  he  went  to  Autun  to  learn 
French  before  entering  at  Brienne),  and  November,  1799,  when  he  made 
the  Coup  d'^fetat  of  Brumaire  at  the  age  of  thirty  years  and  three  months, 
he  seems  to  have  spent  fourteen  years  and  two  months  in  France.  Be- 
tween his  twentieth  and  his  thirtieth  year  he  made  only  one  long  sojourn 
in  France,  the  two  and  a  half  years  before  he  was  appointed  to  the  Army 
Of  Italy. 


110     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

are  only  roadside  points  on  the  royal  highways  issuing 
from  the  capital,  their  pavements  now  deserted  by  traffic, 
the  one  leading  to  Bstle,  the  other  to  Antibes  and  Italy. 
On  the  former  stands  the  village  of  Boissy  St.  L^ger, 
where  Mme.  de  Stael,  arriving  from  Switzerland  on 
November  9,  1799,  made  her  last  change  of  horses  before 
entering  Paris,  just  as  Barras  passed  on  his  way  to  Gros 
Bois  hard  by,  the  chS,teau  then  occupied  by  him,  but  soon 
to  be  given  to  another  son  of  the  Revolution,  Berthier, 
afterwards  Prince  de  Wagram,  whose  descendant  still 
lives  there.  It  was  the  "18  Brumaire,"  and  the  gen- 
darmes escorting  the  fallen  Director  told  the  postilions 
of  Mme.  de  Stael  of  what  had  occurred  at  the  Tuileries ; 
and  she  recounts  how  for  the  first  time  since  the  Revolu- 
tion she  heard  a  popular  name  on  the  lips  of  men  and 
women.  Until  then  everything  had  been  done  by  the 
Constituent  Assembly,  by  the  Convention,  or  by  the 
People ;  but  to-day  the  human  race  was  no  longer  anony- 
mous in  France,  where  in  every  mouth  was  the  name  of 
Bonaparte. 

A  few  miles  distant,  where  the  highroad  to  the  south 
approaches  the  Seine,  fourteen  years  later  a  scene  took 
place  less  dramatic  than  the  better  known  farewell  of 
Fontainebleau  soon  to  come,  but  for  that  reason  more 
pathetic.  It  was  midnight,  on  March  30,  1814.  The 
campaign  of  France  was  over:  Napoleon  in  the  supreme 
struggle  had  risen  to  the  height  of  his  genius,  and  in  a 
month  had  won  twelve  battles  to  defend  the  approaches 
of  his  capital  against  the  armies  of  three  nations.  But 
Paris  was  invested,  and  in  the  hope  of  striking  a  last 
blow,  he  speeds  thither  as  fast  as  a  post-chaise  will  carry 
him,    leaving   his    troops   at   Troyes.      While    changing 


CH.  I        THE  BREVITY  OF  THE  NAPOLEONIC  EPOCH  111 

horses  at  the  Cour  de  France,  a  wayside  inn  near  Juvisy, 
he  hails  a  squadron  of  cavalry  riding  away  from  Paris. 
The  officer,  recognising  in  the  dark  the  well-known  voice, 
halts  and  gives  him  the  news  of  the  day:  the  Empress 
and  Joseph  Bonaparte  in  flight,  the  capitulation  signed, 
and  the  Allies  to  enter  Paris  in  the  morning.  All 
through  the  night  he  paced  the  bleak  road,  refusing  to 
believe  that  it  was  too  late  to  press  on  to  his  capital, 
where  his  presence  alone  would  undo  Marmont's  defeat 
and  Talleyrand's  treachery.  The  chilly  dawn  broke 
before  he  could  be  forced  into  the  cabriolet  which  bore 
him  to  Fontainebleau,  while  the  Tsar  Alexander  was 
consenting  to  be  Talleyrand's  guest  in  the  rue  St. 
Florentin,  where  he  decided  that  the  French  should 
enjoy  a  copy  of  the  British  Constitution,  and  ordered  his 
Cossacks  to  aid  the  Parisians  in  displacing  for  the  first 
time  the  statue  in  the  Place  VendSme.  Two  obelisks 
mark  the  spot  where  the  Emperor  heard  that  the  Empire 
was  ended,  but  the  weather-worn  inscriptions,  though 
older  than  this  roadside  tragedy,  are  significant.  One 
sets  forth  how  "Ludovicus  XV.,  rex  Christianissimus, 
viam  hanc  antea  difficilem,  arduam  et  pene  inviam  fieri 
curavit,"  and  the  other  in  French  says  that  the  monu- 
ments were  restored  "in  the  reign  of  Napoleon  the 
Great." 

"  Napoleon  the  Great "  was  again  spoken  of  as  "  Bona- 
parte "  in  the  fickle  capital  the  night  that  he  trod  his 
Calvary  on  the  steep  which  he  climbed  by  the  road  made 
by  the  king  whose  subject  he  was  born  only  forty-four 
yeai^s  before.  His  career  was  done,  save  for  the  epilogue 
of  the  Hundred  Days,  at  an  age  when  men,  excepting  tlie 
heroes  of  the  French  Revolution,  are  on  the  threshold  of 


112     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

public  life.  It  is  a  coincidence  which  has  not  been 
noticed,  that  at  the  moment  when  the  great  Emperor 
became  Bonaparte  again,  he  was  day  for  day  the  same 
age  as  was  his  nephew,  Louis  Napoleon,  when  he 
dropped  the  family  name  to  become  an  Emperor.^  He 
was  younger  when  he  had  completed  the  work  which 
gives  him  his  title  of  greatness.  Twenty  years  after  the 
Revolution,  ten  years  after  his  return  from  Egypt,  it  was 
all  finished:  and  if  in  1809  he  had  fallen  at  Wagram 
when  he  was  thirty-nine,  his  renown  would  have  been 
almost  unimpaired,  though  even  then,  having  accom- 
plished the  reorganisation  of  France  and  become  the 
master  of  Continental  Europe,  his  ambition  had  impelled 
him  to  his  first  fatal  step,  the  invasion  of  Spain. 

But,  before  the  ambitious  conqueror  had  got  the  better 
of  the  ruler  and  the  organiser,  he  had  accomplished  work 
which  at  the  end  of  the  century,  after  revolutions  and 
invasions,  after  changes  of  dynasty  and  misgovernment 
of  every  form,  lasts  as  the  solid  foundation  and  frame- 
work of  French  society.  The  whole  centralised  adminis- 
tration of  France,  which  in  its  stability  has  survived 
every  political  crisis,  was  the  creation  of  Napoleon  and 
the  keystone  of  his  fabric.  It  was  he  who  organised  the 
existing  administrative  divisions  of  the  departments, 
with  the  officials  supervising  them  and  the  local  assem- 
blies attached  to  them.  The  relations  of  Church  and 
State  are  still  regulated  by  his  Concordat.     The  Uni- 

1  Napoleon,  bom  August  15,  1769,  on  March  30,  1814  (the  last  day  of 
tlie  Empire,  a  provisional  Government  being  set  up  the  next  day),  was 
aged  44  years  and  227  d.ays.  Louis  Xapoleon,  horn  April  20,  1808,  on 
December  1 ,  1  So2  (the  last  day  on  wl.ich  lie  used  the  name  of  Bonaparte, 
being  procliilmfcl  Kniperor  on  December  2),  was  also  age^l  44  y-jcirs  and 
227  days. 


CH.  I  THE  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  FRANCE  113 

versity,  which  remains  the  basis  of  public  education,  was 
his  foundation.  The  Civil  Code,  the  Penal  Code,  the 
Conseil  d'Etat,  the  Judicial  System,  the  Fiscal  System, 
in  fine  every  institution  which  a  law-abiding  Frenchman 
respects,  from  the  Legion  of  Honour  to  the  Bank  of 
France  and  the  Com^die  Fran§aise,  was  either  formed  or 
reorganised  by  Napeolon.  No  doubt  the  revolutionary 
assemblies  sometimes  paused  in  their  work  of  demoli- 
tion to  essay  a  constructive  project.  The  Constituent 
Assembly  created  the  departments,  the  Directory  remod- 
elled the  Institute;  and  Condorcet  might  have  carried 
out  his  schemes  of  education  had  not  his  colleagues  of 
the  Convention  driven  him  into  suicide  to  escape  the 
guillotine.  But  when  Bonaparte  arrived  in  France  in 
1799  from  the  camp  and  the  battle-field,  he  found  that 
the  result  of  the  Revolution,  for  ten  years  in  the  hands 
of  jurists,  rhetoricians,  and  theorists,  was  chaos.  It  was 
illumined  with  a  few  streaks  of  light  which  displayed 
the  fragmentary  beginnings  of  well-conceived  designs; 
but  it  was  none  the  less  a  chaos,  needing  the  inspiration 
of  a  creator  to  evolve  order  from  it,  and  the  authority  of 
a  master  of  men  to  utilise  the  misapplied  intellects  of 
that  erratic  epoch. 

The  institutions  of  the  Napoleonic  establishment  sur- 
vive, not  as  historical  monuments,  but  as  the  working 
machinery  which  regulates  the  existence  of  a  great  people 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  their  minute 
examination  shows  that  they  operate  satisfactorily.  M. 
Taine  and  other  critics  of  the  Napoleonic  reorganisation 
say  it  was  imperfect,  and  ascribe  to  it  many  of  the  ills 
from  which  France  has  suffered.  It  was  not  perfect :  no 
human  work  is ;  but  admirably  suited  to  the  French  tem- 


114     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

perament  is  the  organisation  which,  created  in  less  than 
a  decade  amid  the  alarms  of  war,  has  not  only  performed 
its  functions  for  three  generations,  but  stands  erect  as 
the  framework  to  keep  French  society  together  amid  the 
fever  of  insurrection  or  the  more  lingering  disorder  of 
parliamentary  anarchy,  just  as  though  it  owed  its  stability 
to  the  growth  of  ages. 

It  is  hard  to  see  what  other  form  the  reorganisation  of 
France  could  have  taken.  Had  constitutional  govern- 
ment been  essayed  to  cope  with  the  anarchy,  the  social 
edifice  demolished  at  the  Revolution  could  never  have 
been  reconstituted.  Napoleon  seemed  to  be  called  into 
being,  a  miraculous  or  at  all  events  an  abnormal  figure, 
to  save  the  existence  of  France;  and  that  his  work  has 
lasted  without  any  serious  effort  to  upset  it  shows  how 
good  it  was.  The  conjunction  with  it  of  a  parliamentary 
monarchy  was  anomalous,  but  Napoleon  himself  made 
that  unnatural  combination  inevitable.  At  first  his 
peaceful  work  of  construction  advanced  with  the  devel- 
opment of  his  military  genius.  Marengo  was  followed 
by  the  organisation  of  the  Church  and  of  education;  and 
from  the  council-chamber  where  he  set  his  own  impress 
on  the  Code  to  bear  his  name,  he  sped  across  Europe  to 
win  the  fields  of  Austerlitz  and  Jena.  But  when  the 
marvellous  combination  had  brought  France  in  a  few 
years  from  the  brink  of  disruption  to  an  unequalled 
height  of  splendour  and  prosperity,  then  his  character 
degenerates.  The  lawgiver,  the  organiser,  the  statesman, 
disappear ;  he  is  only  the  conqueror,  conscious  of  his  skill 
in  the  terrible  game  of  war  which  distorts  his  imagina- 
tion and  drags  him  in  a  furious  wanton  course  to  Madrid, 
to  Moscow,  and  to  Leipsic,  till  we  find  him,  by  a  strange 


CH.  I  MADAME  DE  STAEL  AND  NAPOLEON  115 

irony,  after  his  most  consummate  exhibition  of  strategy, 
wandering  on  a  March  night  on  the  road-side  near  Paris, 
deserted  by  his  wife,  his  kindred,  his  marshals,  his  coun- 
sellors, who  owed  to  him  their  place  and  name  in  the 
world. 

Mme.  de  Stael,  writing  soon  after  his  final  downfall, 
said:  "Many  people  hold  that  if  Bonaparte  had  under- 
taken the  invasion  neither  of  Spain  nor  of  Russia  he 
would  still  be  Emperor;  but  he  had  need  of  war  both  to 
establish  and  to  preserve  absolutism.  A  great  nation 
would  not  have  endured  the  monotonous  and  degrading 
weight  of  despotism,  if  military  glory  had  not  continually 
roused  and  animated  public  sentiment."^  The  accom- 
plished daughter  of  Necker  had  two  strong  passions  —  a 
hatred  of  Napoleon  who  had  persecuted  her,  and  an 
affection  for  the  liberties  of  the  British  Constitution. 
But  the  least  prejudiced  spectator,  writing  when  France 
was  worn  out,  weary  of  useless  slaughter,  subjugated  to 
the  foreigner,  and  mutilated,  had  the  right  to  think  that 
the  monster  of  ambition  who  caused  these  calamities 
could  never  have  taken  his  place  as  the  peaceful  ruler  of 
the  nation  which  he  had  led  first  to  triumph  and  then  to 
disaster.  If  the  discussion  of  hypothetical  contingen- 
cies, so  tempting  in  tracing  the  political  history  of 
modern  France,  were  not  futile,  much  might  be  said  on 
the  other  side.  It  seems  as  though  Napoleon,  after  he 
had  done  his  great  work  of  organisation,  and  had  given 
to  the  army  eleven  years  of  legitimate  glory  from  Cas- 
tiglione  to  Friedland,  had  an  unexampled  opportunity  of 
ruling  peacefull)'^  a  contented  people.  Save  for  the 
Royalist  plots  there  was  then  no  symptom  of  discontent 
*  Considerations  sur  la  Revolution  Fran<^aise,  partie  iv.  c.  19. 


116     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

with  the  authoritative  regime  which  Mme.  de  Stael 
called  despotism,  but  under  which  there  was  more  liberty 
than  in  the  despotism  of  the  Convention  or  in  the 
despotism  of  the  subsequent  anarchy.  Had  her  life  not 
ended  two  years  after  Waterloo,  she  would  have  soon  seen 
that  the  limited  monarchy  of  her  desire  was  capable  of 
oppression,^  without  even  the  excuse  of  public  disorder 
as  at  the  time  of  the  White  Terror.  She  might  have  also 
realised  the  vanity  of  her  theory,  that  the  Restoration 
took  up  the  tale  of  the  Revolution  where  it  was  inter- 
rupted by  violence  in  1791,  and  that  the  intervening 
events  formed  a  deplorable  interlude  outside  the  pro- 
gressive history  of  France. 

Looking  back  from  the  end  of  the  century  to  its  first 
three  decades,  we  perceive  a  phenomenon  which  precisely 
contradicts  the  idea  running  through  the  treatise  of 
Mme.  de  Stael.  The  period  wherein  the  rightful  kings 
of  France  reigned  over  the  realm  restored  to  them  seems, 
in  spite  of  the  brilliant  literary  renaissance  which  dawned 
in  it,  politically  obscure  after  the  years  which  had  gone 
before.  Louis  XVIII.  and  Charles  X.  had  grown  into 
manhood  in  the  ancient  Court,  taking  part  in  its  pleas- 
ures, its  intrigues,  and  its  politics.  Yet  these  princes, 
who  had  been  foremost  figures  in  a  society  never  equalled 
for  stateliness  and  grace,  when  they  recovered  their 
inheritance  made  but  a  mean  appearance  on  the  throne 

1  Mme.  de  Stael,  after  the  1st  Restoration,  began  to  protest  against  the 
increasing  oppression  by  the  clergy  and  the  ^migr^s,  and  would  have 
agitated  opinion  against  the  restored  monarchy  but  for  the  return  of 
Napoleon.  —  Correspondance  de  Talleyrand  et  de  Louis  XVIII.  (1814). 
In  1822  her  daughter,  the  Duchesse  de  Broglie,  thanked  God  that  she  had 
not  survived  to  see  all  her  hopes  set  at  nought.  —  Souvenirs  du  Baron  de 
Barante,  vol.  iii. 


CH.  I  THE  NEW   CHARLEMAGNE  117 

and  in  the  palaces  of  their  fathers ;  though  the  elder  of 
them  was  a  statesman  of  high  ability,  and  was  a  good 
king,  who  reigned  with  sagacity  during  the  first  years 
of  repose  necessary  for  the  renewal  of  the  forces  of 
France.  Had  they  come  back  recalled  to  France  to 
restore  order  after  anarchy,  they  might  each  have  pre- 
sented a  more  imposing  figure  to  history.  But  it  was 
not  to  revolutionary  disorder  that  these  monarchs  suc- 
ceeded; it  was  the  great  son  and  organiser  of  the  Revo- 
lution whom  they  came  after,  dwarfed  by  him  who  had 
filled  Europe  with  his  presence,  and  whose  constructive 
work  has  remained  when  the  traces  of  his  mad  havoc  have 
disappeared. 

After  the  prudent  reign  of  Louis  XVIII.  had  ended  in 
1824,  Charles  X.  decided  to  be  crowned  in  the  cathedral 
of  Reims  with  all  the  pomp  with  which  the  Church  had 
honoured  the  royal  guardians  of  her  eldest  daughter,  on 
the  spot  associated  for  ages  with  the  assumption  of  the 
purple  of  France.  To  this  altar  Joan  of  Arc  had  brought 
Charles  VII.  to  be  anointed  with  the  holy  chrism.  Here 
the  Grand  Monarque,  a  child  of  sixteen,  had  received 
the  crown  in  the  presence  of  his  mother,  Anne  of 
Austria,  and  of  the  Italian  cardinal  who  had  usurped  his 
father's  place;  and  here  Charles  X.  himself,  when  Comte 
d'Artois,  had  assisted  fifty  years  before  at  the  coronation 
of  his  fated  brother  Louis  XVI.  and  of  Marie  Antoinette. 
Louis  XVIII.  had  dispensed  with  the  sacred  ceremony; 
when  he  succeeded  de  jure  the  cathedral  of  Reims  was 
not  accessible  to  the  family  of  Bourbon,  and  in  France 
the  heads  of  kings  were  then  associated  with  instruments 
other  than  crowns.  But  the  aged  monarch  who  came 
next   decreed   that  the   holy  phial   brought   down   from 


118     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

heaven  for  the  baptism  of  Clovis  should  be  broached  once 
more  for  him ;  and  though  its  virtues  could  not  preserve 
his  kingship  even  for  the  few  years  left  of  his  span  of 
life,  perhaps  the  event  was  worthier  of  resounding  cele- 
bration than  it  seemed  to  spectators,  for  now  we  know 
that  it  was  to  be  the  only  occasion  for  a  century  and  a 
quarter  on  which  a  ruler  of  France  succeeded  his  prede- 
cessor by  hereditary  right. 

Between  the  two  ceremonies  in  which  Charles  of 
Bourbon  had  played  a  part  there  had  been  another  corona- 
tion in  France.  Not  in  the  royal  shrine  of  Champagne, 
but  at  Notre  Dame  de  Paris,  a  dozen  years  after  the 
anointed  head  of  Louis  XVI.  had  fallen  within  sight  of 
its  towers,  while  the  Comte  d'Artois  was  reposing  in 
safety  at  Holyrood,  took  place  the  most  imposing  conse- 
cration of  a  monarch  that  Christendom  had  ever  seen,  for 
the  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ  came  from  Rome  to  assist  at  it. 
It  was  not  in  the  English  but  in  the  French  sense  of  the 
word  that  Pius  VII.  assisted  at  the  coronation  of  Napo- 
leon, for  the  captive  Pope  sat  a  spectator  while  the 
amazing  conqueror  placed  with  his  own  hands  the  crown 
on  his  head.  The  last  witnesses  both  of  that  scene  and 
of  the  coronation  of  Charles  X.  twenty  years  later  have 
gone,  but  we  have  some  idea  why  the  audacious  splen- 
dour of  the  upstart  pageant  paled  and  made  unreal  the 
legitimate  revival  of  the  regal  sacrament.  Two  painters 
who  were  present,  David  and  his  pupil  Gdrard,  have  left 
us  their  respective  impressions  on  the  walls  of  two  noble 
galleries  once  the  antechambers  of  kings  of  France. 
Regard  the  sumptuously  attired  personages  of  the  Impe- 
rial retinue  reproduced  in  the  rich  colouring  of  the 
revolutionary  painter.      Kneeling   before    her    husband. 


CH.  I  APOTHEOSIS  OF  THE   REVOLUTION  119 

and  unheeding  the  gesture  of  benediction  of  the  Pontiff, 
is  Josephine,  ex-mistress  of  Barras,  to-day  Empress  of 
the  French,  and,  unlike  her  heir-desiring  master,  des- 
tined to  have  a  descendant  to  rule  over  France.  Soon 
she  will  pay  the  penalty  for  the  ill-timed  term  of  her 
fruitfulness,  and  when  the  Creole's  place  is  taken  by  a 
daughter  of  the  Emperors  of  the  West,  the  Church, 
whose  chief  on  earth  is  here  to-day,  will  show  its  flexibil- 
ity by  blessing  the  new  union  while  she  lingers  neglected 
at  Malmaison.  The  minister  of  the  Church  who  will  unite 
his  nephew,  the  successor  of  Louis  XVI.,  to  the  niece  of 
Marie  Antoinette  is  here  too.  Ciesar's  uncle  eight  years 
ago  had  lost  his  holy  vocation,  and  instead  of  a  village 
priest  in  Corsica  was  a  commissary  in  the  Army  of  Italy ; 
but  the  Consulate  revived  the  ancient  faith  in  many 
breasts  and  Cardinal  Fesch  had  been  Primate  of  the 
Gauls  already  three  years  when,  a  Prince  of  the  Church, 
he  escorted  the  Pope  to  France.  Here  is  another  who 
had  worn  the  violet  of  prelates  in  the  previous  reign 
when  it  was  rarely  accessible  to  sons  of  the  people  like 
Joseph  Fesch,  but,  apostate  and  unmitred,  Talleyrand 
does  not  shun  pious  ceremonies,  nor  even  the  presence 
of  the  keeper  of  the  Fisher's  Seal. 

Now  if  we  pause  to  examine  David's  picture  at  the 
Louvre,  it  is  not  because  it  represents  with  skill  an 
isolated  scene  of  historic  interest,  but  because  it  reveals 
the  making  of  modern  France  and  even  of  modern  Europe. 
It  is  the  apotheosis  of  the  French  Revolution ;  it  is  the  con- 
secration of  its  organisation  by  armed  force.  Napoleon 
incarnates  first  the  triumph  of  the  populace  over  the 
Ancient  Regime  and  then  the  organisation  of  the  people 
into  omnipotent  military  despotism.     The  Papacy  has,  in 


120  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

its  eternal  wisdom,  frequently  shown  indulgent  com- 
placency for  the  disorders  and  delicts  of  great  rulers  who 
have  represented  mighty  dynasties  and  long  traditions; 
but  there  is  not  one  among  this  brilliant  throng  blessed 
by  the  Pope  who  represents  any  tradition.  Without  the 
revolutionary  victories  of  Castiglione,  of  Rivoli  and 
Marengo,  they  would  be  a  band  of  nameless  adventurers 
and  adventuresses  headed  by  an  unfrocked  priest:  but 
they  are  the  satellites  of  the  risen  star  of  military  genius, 
and  the  successor  of  St.  Peter  quits  the  apostolic  thresh- 
old to  mingle  with  them.  Presently  his  example  will 
be  followed  by  the  occupants  of  the  proudest  temporal 
thrones  of  the  Continent  when  Austerlitz  and  Jena  have 
made  them  the  vassals  of  the  soldier  crowning  himself 
with  the  crown  of  Charlemagne. 

Hence  it  is  that  whatever  vulgarity  there  may  be 
hidden  beneath  the  scarlet  and  the  purple  and  the  ermine 
crowded  on  the  floor  of  Notre  Dame,  the  force  and 
audacity  of  the  scene  made  any  other  manner  of  corona- 
tion in  France  henceforth  ridiculous.  Before  glancing 
at  the  other  picture  we  may  reflect  that  some  of  the 
materials  which  gave  David  his  subject  are  still  ready 
to  hand  in  France.  The  world  will  probably  never  see 
another  Napoleon.  But  a  leader  with  the  genius  of  one 
of  his  marshals  may  one  day  in  a  moment  of  victory 
realise  that  the  conquering  armies  of  Bonaparte  which 
made  him  Emperor  were  a  handful  of  ill-equipped  levies 
compared  with  the  disciplined  legions  which  the  French 
democracy  now  maintains  on  a  war  footing,  at  the  dis- 
posal of  a  soldier  of  fortune  who  touches  the  popular 
fancy. 

The    other    picture   at    Versailles    represents    a  mas- 


CH.  I  APOTHEOSIS  OF  THE   REVOLUTION  121 

querade  which  imposes  on  no  one.  The  costumes  and  the 
architecture  are  the  same  which  are  familiar  in  paintings 
and  prints  of  bygone  coronations  at  Reims,  but  we  recog- 
nise some  of  these  faces  as  having  taken  part  in  certain 
events  and  movements  which  have  altered  the  face  of 
Europe  since  the  hero  of  to-day  assisted  at  his  brother's 
crowning.  The  old  King  is  embracing  the  Dauphin 
amid  the  acclamations  of  his  companions  of  the  emigra- 
tion, and  of  certain  others.  Had  there  been  no  Salic 
law  to  prevent  the  consort  of  the  heir  to  the  throne  from 
becoming  Queen  of  France  and  Navarre  when  she  emerged 
from  the  Temple,  whence  her  father  and  mother  had  gone 
to  the  guillotine,  and  where  her  brother  had  succumbed, 
history  might  have  taken  a  different  turn ;  for  Napoleon 
himself  recognised  in  the  Duchesse  d'Angouleme  the 
only  man  of  her  family.  But  the  applauding  ^migr^s 
are  not  the  only  audience  in  the  cathedral.  The  two 
Cardinal-Dukes  who  officiate  at  the  anointing  are  aided 
in  the  after  ceremony  by  two  Marshal-Dukes  whose 
names  and  titles  were  unknown  to  the  Old  Regime,  for 
they  bear  them  by  the  favour  of  the  self-crowned  Emperor 
who  died  at  St.  Helena  four  years  ago.  So  Mortier,  Due 
de  Tr^vise,  and  Soult,  Due  de  Dalmatie,  have  offered  the 
hand-of- justice  and  the  sceptre  to  the  King ;  and  the  grim 
old  marshals  who  would  have  been  sergeant-pensioners  of 
a  royal  regiment  but  for  the  Revolution,  for  which  they 
fought,  perhaps  think  it  better  to  spend  a  morning  trip- 
ping in  silk  and  satin  with  lowly  obeisance  on  the  carpet 
oifleurs  de  lys  than  to  be  taken  out  behind  the  Luxem- 
bourg and  shot  like  their  comrade  Ney.  The  shoes  of 
lilied  velvet  have  been  humbly  put  on  the  royal  feet  by 
the  ubiquitous  one  ever  ready  to  bend  the  knee  to  any 


122     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    dk.  i 

master.  Louis  XVI.,  Constituent  Assembly,  Conven- 
tion, Directory,  First  Consul,  Emperor,  are  all  the  same 
to  M.  de  Talleyrand,  who  is  equally  ready  to  betray  them 
in  turn.  The  Prince  de  B^nevent,  alone  of  his  prodig- 
ious generation,  personifies  the  Revolution  in  all  its 
phases,  so  when  it  takes  that  of  a  royal  masque  he  plays 
his  part  in  it  with  consummate  art.  His  performances 
are  not  yet  done ;  thirteen  years  are  yet  to  run  before  the 
Abbe  Dupanloup  will  be  called  to  the  rue  St.  Florentin 
to  hear  a  confession  perhaps  more  interesting  than  the 
published  memoirs  of  Talleyrand.  He  has  one  more 
master  to  serve  who  is  here  to-day.  We  all  know  that 
the  head  of  the  Orleans  family  is,  after  the  Children  of 
France,  always  the  first  Prince  of  the  blood,  since  the 
renunciation  of  the  Spanish  Bourbons ;  so  here  is  Louis 
Philippe  erect  at  the  right  of  the  throne  just  as  he  used 
to  mount  guard  at  the  door  of  the  Jacobin  Club  in  his 
youth,  when  his  cousin  D'Artois,  king  to-day,  had  fled 
to  Coblentz,  and  when  his  father  Philippe  Egalite  was 
meditating  how  he  might  supplant  Louis  XVI.  without 
sending  him  to  the  scaffold. 

The  coronation  of  Napoleon,  with  all  its  magnificent 
effrontery,  was  the  apotheosis  of  the  revolutionary  settle- 
ment. The  crown  which  the  soldier  of  fortune  assumed 
that  day  departed  from  his  head,  but  the  spectacle  sym- 
bolised the  result  of  the  Revolution,  the  civil  reconstruc- 
tion of  France  by  a  military  adventurer.  The  phase  of 
the  Revolution  proclaimed  that  day,  the  Empire,  did  not 
last,  but  its  work  survived  it,  making  vain  all  attempts 
to  ignore  the  change  of  things.  Hence  the  coronation  of 
Charles  X.  was  a  mere  travesty,  though  the  chief  mime 
was  the  lawful  heir  of  St.  Louis,  and  all  it  led  to  was 


CH.  I  THE   CORONATION  OF   CHARLES   X  123 

the  Revolution  of  July  for  the  benefit  of  the  family  of  the 
regicide  Orleans,  while  outside  the  royal  fete  the  people 
responded  with  a  demonstration,  when  in  ominous  thou- 
sands they  bore  to  the  grave  General  Foy,  a  hero  of  the 
Grande  Armee. 

Not  that  the  tradition  of  the  Empire  was  generally 
popular  under  the  Restoration.  On  the  contrary,  the 
removal  of  the  scourge  of  war  from  a  nation  exhausted  by 
twenty  years'  drain  of  life-blood  was  a  relief  so  exhilarat- 
ing that  the  blitheness  of  the  French  people  is  one  of  the 
most  notable  features  of  that  curious  epoch.  Defeat,  loss  of 
territory,  and  foreign  invasion  had  none  of  the  grievous 
effects  which  our  generation  has  seen  produced  on  the 
French  nature  by  similar  misfortunes  comparatively 
slight.  Save  to  his  old  soldiers,  the  memory  of  Napoleon 
was  a  nightmare  to  the  French  in  the  early  days  of  the 
Restoration,  when  Victor  Cousin  dared  to  say  of  "Water- 
loo that  it  was  the  triumph  of  liberty  over  despotism. 
It  is  interesting  to  follow  the  fluctuations  of  French 
sentiment  towards  Napoleon.  The  rock  of  St.  Helena 
was  the  first  cause  of  the  metamorphosis.  Had  another 
Elba  been  found  for  him  in  European  waters,  had  he 
ended  his  days  in  a  suburb  of  London  or  of  Vienna,  spy- 
ing the  amours  of  Marie  Louise,  composing  manifestoes 
to  the  people  of  France,  or  plotting  to  reappear  in  their 
midst,  his  legend  would  have  never  revived,  though 
his  constructive  work  would  have  remained.  But  the 
Memorial  of  St.  Helena,  coming  forth  from  the  tomb  on 
the  desert  island,  was  the  gospel  of  a  miraculous  apos- 
tolate:  so  he  who  for  the  last  portion  of  his  career  had 
imperturbably  sent  men  to  death  by  myriads  in  the  pur- 
suit of  his  insensate  ambition,  was  transfigured  into  "  the 


124     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

Christ  of  the  French  Revolution,  wickedly  nailed  to  the 
rock  by  the  malice  of  kings."  Without  St.  Helena, 
Beranger's  ballads  might  have  pleased  the  veterans  of  the 
Grande  Arm^e  and  charmed  future  generations  by  their 
literary  beauty,  but  there  would  have  been  little  need  for 
the  government  of  the  Restoration  to  imprison  the  poet, 
who  afterwards  gave  his  aid  to  the  Revolution  of  July 
which  brought  back  the  tricolour. 

Louis  Philippe  in  turn  encouraged  the  revival  of  the 
legend  by  sending  his  son  to  bring  home  the  Emperor's 
ashes ;  so  that,  when  the  Middle-class  Monarchy  was 
upset,  the  name  of  the  hero  and  martyr  of  the  Revolu- 
tion was  so  cherished  in  the  newly  enfranchised  democ- 
racy that  its  inheritance  bore  his  nephew  to  popular 
dictatorship.  The  Second  Empire  did  not  increase  the 
prestige  of  the  Napoleonic  tradition,  which  seemed  to 
have  incurred  eternal  execration  when  the  dynasty  fell 
amid  the  same  woodlands  of  the  Ardennes  where  Du- 
mouriez  had  led  his  raw  levies  to  the  first  victories  of 
the  Revolution,  and  had  associated  the  name  of  Sedan 
with  repulse  of  invasion  before  the  fame  of  Bonaparte 
was  ever  heard  of  in  France.  The  years  after  the  war 
mark  the  lowest  depths  of  misesteem  attached  to  the 
Napoleonic  legend  since  Las  Cases  published  the  Memo- 
rial. Lanfrey  had  already  essayed  to  damage  it  when 
the  events  of  1870  came  as  a  commentary  to  his  work  ; 
but  as  the  memory  of  the  Second  Empire  receded  a 
reaction  commenced,  and  when  Taine  published  his  un- 
flattering portrait  of  Napoleon,  the  controversy  roused 
by  it  showed  that  there  was  a  renaissance  of  feeling  in 
favour  of  the  soldier  of  the  Revolution.  The  rifeness 
of  parliamentary  anarchy  and   scandal,  not  unlike   that 


CH.  1  THE  NAPOLEONIC  LEGEND  125 

which  Bonaparte  suppressed,  helped  to  turn  the  revived 
sentiment  into  a  cult  and  a  passion,  which,  however,  had 
only  a  literary  development. 

But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  whatever  sentiment  prevails 
for  the  moment  in  France  with  regard  to  the  character 
and  career  of  Napoleon  his  work  endures  unaffected. 
Under  the  Restoration  of  the  legitimate  kings,  under 
the  Revolutionary  Monarchy  of  the  Orleans  branch, 
under  the  Plebiscitary  Empire,  and  under  the  Parlia- 
mentary Republic,  the  Napoleonic  construction  forms 
the  unchanging  basis  of  the  administration  and  life  of 
the  country,  whatever  forms  of  legislative  and  executive 
powers  the  constitution  of  the  moment  has  set  up.  Con- 
sequently, whether  we  regard  Napoleon  as  M.  Taine's 
mediaeval  Italian  condottiere,  who  strongly  resembles  the 
Corsican  ogre  of  our  forefathers,  or  as  the  idyllic  Little 
Corporal  with  his  gray  military  coat ;  whether  we  are 
dazzled  with  the  audacity  of  the  coronation  scene,  or 
shocked  at  the  murder  of  the  Due  d'Enghien,  we  have 
to  recognise  that  his  constructive  work  remains  the 
framework  of  modern  France  and  that  its  stability  re- 
sists time  and  vicissitude.  Decentralisation  has  been 
the  subject  of  a  thousand  pamphlets ;  the  revision  of 
the  Concordat  is  a  venerable  article  of  reform  ;  the  sys- 
tem of  education  has  been  improved  and  the  tribunals 
liave  been  increased ;  but  the  Napoleonic  settlement  of 
the  Revolution  lasts.  Moreover,  nothing  survives  of  the 
Revolution  but  what  was  established  by  Napoleon.  So, 
now  that  a  century  has  passed  since  the  great  change 
of  things,  we  see  clearly  that  its  chief  tangible  result 
was  the  authoritative  centralised  government  established 
by  him  whom   Mme.  de   Stael   called   a   Robespierre  on 


120     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

horseback,  thus  recognising  the  revolutionary  character  of 
his  work.  But  the  absolutism  of  Napoleon  was  neces- 
sary and  salutary  for  the  reconstruction  of  France  ;  and 
that  he  organised  the  chaos  of  the  Revolution  into  a 
fabric,  of  which  the  use  by  three  generations  has  dis- 
played the  suitability,  is  a  proof  of  his  providential 
genius. 


CHAPTER  II 

LIBERTY 


Before  we  examine  the  working  of  the  institutions 
under  which  France  is  governed  at  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  their  connection  with  the  great 
Revolution,  we  may  first  inquire  what  has  been  the  fate 
of  certain  principles  laid  down  at  that  epoch.  It  is  es- 
pecially interesting  to  observe  the  attitude  of  the  French 
to  those  displayed  in  the  device  of  the  First  Republic, 
"Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity,"  which  in  1848  was 
reiterated  in  the  Constitution^  promulgated  the  month 
before  Louis  Bonaparte  was  elected  President  of  the 
Second  Republic.  On  the  third  occasion  when  France 
established  that  form  of  government,  it  voted  a  Consti- 
tution containing  no  declaration  of  principle  and  no 
promise  of  liberty.  The  Republic,  however,  set  up  again 
the  motto  which  the  Prince-President  had  removed  from 
public  buildings  when  he  rooted  up  the  Trees  of  Liberty 
planted  by  the  enthusiasts  of  1848.  Not  that  it  is  cer- 
tain that  the  inscription  broadcast  of  the  name  of  Lib- 
erty, together  with  those  of  its  accompanying  virtues, 
is  the  best  means  of  imposing  its  principles  on  citizens. 

1  Constitution  du  4  Novembre,  1848. 
127 


128     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

The  sight  of  it,  for  instance,  on  the  portals  of  the  State 
prisons  is  more  suggestive  of  those  metaphysical  discus- 
sions in  which  the  French  have  essayed  to  define  the 
term,  than  of  Liberty  in  the  eyes  of  commonplace 
man. 

A  visit  to  Oxford  led  M.  Taine  to  the  conclusion  that 
metaphysics  did  not  flourish  in  England,^  but  the  absence 
of  the  science,  in  which  he  was  an  adept,  did  not  attenu- 
ate his  praise  of  our  literature  ;  for  in  it  he  recognised 
that  the  unphilosophic  terminology  wherein  we  clothe 
our  ideas  has  been  an  advantage  in  the  history  of  the 
nation.  Thus  we  are  more  practical  in  our  treatment 
of  Liberty,  which,  to  a  Frenchman,  is  a  dogma  to  define 
or  to  expound  rather  than  a  factor  in  the  every-day  life 
of  a  community.  This  conception  partly  accounts  for 
the  durability  of  the  fiction  that  the  Revolution  was  the 
era  of  Liberty,  the  exact  contrary  being  the  fact.  The 
emancipation  of  modern  thought  was  effected  by  the 
philosophers  who  were  the  products  of  the  Ancient 
Monarchy,  which  let  them  air  their  doctrines  with  little 
hindrance.  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  Diderot  all  contrib- 
uted to  the  Revolution,  but  had  they  lived  until  the 
Terror,  they  would  in  spite  of  their  advanced  years 
have  probably  shared  the  fate  of  Lavoisier  and  of  Male- 
sherbes,^  unless  they  had  cheated  the  guillotine,  as  did 
Condorcet  in  his  cell.  Each  of  those  philosophers  was 
arrested   under  a  warrant   which  bore  first   on  its  face 

1  Litterature  Anglaise,  livre  v.  The  metaphysical  currents,  which 
led  to  the  Revolution,  are  critically  analysed  by  Taine  with  great  skill 
and  lucidity  in  the  Ancien  Begime,  livre  iii. 

2  "Voltaire  and  Rousseau  died  in  1778:  Diderot  in  1784:  Condorcet 
committed  suicide  in  March,  1794 :  Malesherbes  was  guillotined  in  April, 
and  Lavoisier  in  May,  1794. 


CH.  n       REVOLUTIONARY  CONCEFTION  OP  LIBERTY  129 

the  word  Liberty.  Malesherbes,  best  known  as  the  in- 
trepid advocate  of  Louis  XVL,  was  the  friend  of  Rous- 
seau, and  under  his  administration,  as  a  royal  official,  had 
appeared  the  Encyclopoedia.  Jean- Jacques  had  been  ex- 
humed to  pompously  follow  Voltaire  to  the  Pantheon  a 
few  months  before  his  venerable  friend  perished,  with 
his  daughter  and  his  granddaughter,  on  the  same  scaffold 
where  some  days  later  the  illustrious  Lavoisier  died,  who, 
begging  that  his  execution  might  be  postponed  till  he 
had  completed  his  last  great  experiment,  was  told  by 
the  public  prosecutor  that  "the  Republic  had  no  need 
of  savants  and  chemists." 

It  was  thus  that  the  apostles  of  liberty,  who  had  sur- 
vived the  Ancient  Monarchy  of  their  origin,  were  treated 
in  that  stage  of  the  Revolution  which  had  Liberty  for 
its  official  device.  If  Rousseau  and  Diderot  could  have 
lived  through  it  to  its  next  period,  the  Napoleonic  re- 
gime, their  heads  would  have  been  in  less  danger  than 
at  the  time  when  the  cult  of  Liberty  was  official ;  but 
they  would  have  experienced  a  severer  supervision  of 
their  philosophy  under  the  revolutionary  dictatorship 
than  under  the  old  Monarchy,  which  they  helped  to 
shatter.  Under  Napoleon  they  would  have  had  to  choose 
between  putting  forth  their  thoughts  in  exile,  and  keep- 
ing silence  in  the  land  which  had  won  its  liberty :  or 
they  might,  under  paternal  restraint,  have  aided  the 
organiser  of  the  Revolution  in  his  reconstruction  of 
France,  as  did  Tronchet,^  the  friend  of  Mirabeau,  in 
the  preparation  of  the  Code.  It  was  only  when  the 
allied  anti-Revolutionary  sovereigns  forced  back  its  an- 

1  Tronchet,  like  Malesherbes,  is  best  known  as  one  of  the  valiant  advo- 
cates of  Louis  XVI. 


130     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

cient  line  of  kings  on  France  that  it  began  to  enjoy  a 
taste  of  the  liberty  which  the  philosophers  had  preached, 
and  which  the  Revolution  had  checked  while  making 
great  parade  of  the  principle.  The  First  Year  of  Liberty 
in  the  Revolutionary  Calendar  began  on  September  21, 
1792,1  and  the  previous  night,  after  Valmy,  by  the  biv- 
ouac fire,  Goethe  had  said,  "On  this  spot  and  on  this 
day  has  commenced  a  new  era  for  the  history  of  the 
world."  The  poet's  observation  was  accurate,  but  the 
new  era,  which  dated  from  the  defeat  of  the  royal 
troops  of  Prussia  by  the  conscripts  of  the  Revolution, 
was  not  the  epoch  of  liberty  of  which  he  presaged  the 
dawn.  Sixteen  years  later  at  Erfurt,  he  had  occasion 
to  recognise  the  nature  of  the  era  inaugurated  by  the 
army  of  the  Revolution,  when  he  talked  with  Napoleon, 
in  the  plenitude  of  his  glory  and  absolutism,  who  had 
summoned  thither  the  autocrat  of  Russia  to  discuss  with 
him  the  maintenance  of  the  Continental  blockade. ^  The 
intellectual  revolution  of  the  eighteenth  century,  led  by 
Montesquieu,  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  and  the  Encyclopae- 
dists, was  checked  by  the  political  revolution  which  it 
helped  to  cause.  In  1789  the  friends  of  liberty  in  all 
countries  hoped  that  the  violent  movement  initiated  in 
France  to  sweep  away  the  oppression  of  the  Old  Regime 
would  lead  to  the  triumph  of  their  principles :  but  as 
M.  Taine  demonstrates,  from  the  first  moment  of  the 
uprising  there  was  never  any  hope  for  a  philosophic  re- 
settlement of  society.  The  spontaneous  anarchy,  which 
was  immediate,  swiftly  became  the  prey  of  the  Jacobin 

1  It  was  a  year  later,  1  Vend^miaire,  An  XL,  that  the  calendar  began 
to  be  used. 

«  October,  1808. 


CH.  n  THE  DEVICE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  131 

conquest,  the  despotism  of  disorder,  which  needed  the 
liigh-handed  discipline  of  military  dictatorship  to  mas- 
ter it. 

The  association  therefore  of  the  idea  of  Liberty  with 
the  Revolution,  or  at  all  events  with  that  phase  of  it 
which  established  the  Republican  form  of  government, 
is  conventional ;  and  if  this  were  generally  admitted, 
there  would  be  no  reason  to  advert  to  the  severe  restric- 
tions on  liberty  under  the  regime  claiming  to  be  the 
particular  offspring  of  the  Revolution,  or  to  the  spirit 
hostile  to  liberty  which  is  rife  in  France  a  century 
after  that  era  of  emancipation.  If  the  inscription  on 
coins  and  on  public  buildings,  "  Libert^,  Egalite,  Frater- 
nite,"  were  merely  an  official  badge,  we  should  take  no 
more  serious  notice  of  it  than  of  the  heraldic  motto  of 
a  distinguished  family  referring  to  some  more  or  less 
authentic  adventure  in  its  history,  out  of  keeping  with 
the  character  of  its  present  members.  The  chief  objec- 
tion to  it  would  be  its  length,  as  painted  in  black  char- 
acters it  often  defaces  a  handsome  monument,  and  we 
should  wish  that  the  Third  Republic  had  chosen  a  less 
sprawling  device,  like  the  S.P.Q.R.  of  the  municipality 
of  modern  Rome,  which  for  other  reasons  is  equally  inapt. 
But  voices  of  authority  in  the  Republic  tell  us  that  the 
official  placarding  of  Liberty  and  the  other  words  is 
symbolical  of  the  efflorescence  of  the  doctrine  implied 
in  them  under  the  present  regime,  which  inherited  it 
from  the  Revolution.  If  we  take  up  the  challenge  we 
shall  perhaps  find  that  the  apparent  inconsistency  in 
theory  and  in  practice  is  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  in 
France  liberty  is  a  mere  subject  of  the  class-room  and 
the  library. 


132  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

The  study  of  philosophy,  of  which  M.  Taine  noted  the 
absence  at  our  chief  seat  of  metaphysical  learning,  is  not 
neglected  in  France.  Before  the  age  at  which  youths 
enter  the  English  Universities  the  toiling  school-boys  of 
France  are  dipping  into  studies  similar  to  those  which 
only  a  few  of  the  most  diligent  pupils  of  Oxford  cultivate 
several  years  later.  As  an  intellectual  training  the  edu- 
cation in  the  public  schools  of  France  is  superior  to  that 
which  burdens  the  resources  of  English  parents  of  moder- 
ate means,  while  tending  to  turn  our  nation  into  a  mus- 
cular plutocracy.  The  good  and  evil  of  the  French 
system  I  hope  to  examine  before  long.  Here  we  have 
only  to  glance  at  its  working  with  regard  to  the  principle 
and  practice  of  liberty.  The  young  Frenchmen  who 
correspond  to  our  sixth-form  boys  have  studied  the 
theories  both  in  antiquity  and  in  French  philosophy  ;  but 
when  they  get  up  from  their  books  their  surroundings 
make  them  feel  that  what  they  have  learned  about  liberty 
has  no  more  practical  bearing  on  modern  life  than  the 
geography  of  the  Odyssey,  or  the  agriculture  of  the 
Georgics.  A  Frenchman  often  likens  a  Lycee  in  its 
interior  economy  to  a  barrack,  or  to  a  prison,  and,  unless 
he  were  a  day  scholar,  looks  back  to  his  school-days  as  a 
period  of  servitude  in  which,  sleeping  and  waking,  he  was 
subject  to  perpetual  espionage.  There  is  no  sadder 
spectacle  on  the  gay  scene  of  Paris  than  that  of  the 
mournful  processions  of  bearded  youths  in  collegiate  uni- 
forms promenading  the  Champs  Elys^es  under  the  eyes  of 
their  ushers. 

During  the  rest  of  his  career  a  French  citizen,  if  of  law- 
abiding  temperament,  may  experience  no  encroachments 
on  his  liberty  ;  for  the  notion  that  a  resident  in  France  is 


CH.  n      PEKSONAL  LIBERTY  UNDER  THE  REPUBLIC  133 

the  prey  of  a  constant  official  vexation  is  exaggerated,  and 
there  is  no  country  where  under  normal  circumstances  life 
can  be  enjoyed  more  tranquilly.  At  the  same  time  he  is 
exposed  to  accidents  which  remind  him  that  the  chief 
tangible  result  of  the  French  Revolution  was  the  volun- 
tary submission  of  the  nation  to  the  tyranny  of  absolu- 
tism, as  the  following  case  will  show.  A  commercial  clerk, 
after  his  day's  work,  is  showing  to  his  children,  in 
M.  Armand  Dayot's  popular  pictorial  history  of  the 
Revolution,  the  reprints  illustrating  the  horrors  of  the 
Bastille.  We  know  now  that  the  demolition  of  that  for- 
tress revealed  that  the  rare  prisoners  interned  in  it,  in 
1789,  were  not  friends  of  liberty  and  had  not  much  to 
complain  of ;  ^  but  the  massacre  by  the  mob  of  Governor 
de  Launay  had  to  be  justified,  and  the  prints  of  the 
period  represent  the  insurgents  rescuing  the  captives  just 
as  the  rats  were  about  to  devour  them  on  the  14th  of 
July.  So  the  good  father  explains  to  his  sons  the  nature 
of  a  lettre  de  cachet,  and  the  iniquity  of  a  system  de- 
stroyed by  the  glorious  Revolution,  which  permitted  a 
citizen  to  be  thrown  into  prison  without  trial  —  when  a 
knock  is  heard  at  the  door.  A  police  officer  enters  with 
a  warrant  to  arrest  the  man  on  the  charge  of  defrauding 
his  employers :  he  protests  his  innocence  and  is  carried 
off. 

So  far  the  proceedings  might  have  occurred  in  any  free 
country,  even  in  the  case  of  a  man  unjustly  taken  into 
custody;  but  the  next  steps,  which  a  whole  generation 

1  M.  Gaston  Deschamps,  who  has  studied  the  subject,  finds  that  only 
six  or  seven  men  were  in  custody  on  July  14,  1789,  none  of  whom  were 
political  prisoners,  four  being  forgere,  and  all  were  well  lodged  and  fed. 
The  infamous  Marquis  de  Sade  was  an  inmate  of  the  Bastille  shortly 
before  that  date. 


134     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

under  the  Third  Republic  has  submitted  to,  are  not  sug- 
gestive of  life  under  a  democratic  parliamentary  regime, 
of  which  the  official  fete  is  the  anniversary  of  the  fall  of 
the  Bastille.  The  accused  person  is  locked  up  in  solitary 
confinement,  cut  off  from  communication  with  his  family, 
and  in  private  audience  interrogated  day  after  day  by  a 
magistrate,  who  strives  to  extort  an  avowal.  Meanwhile 
all  the  forces  of  the  police  are  at  work  to  get  up  evidence 
against  the  untried  prisoner,  of  the  nature  of  which  he 
is  kept  ignorant,  while  the  juge  d^ instruction^  in  his  inter- 
rogatories, uses  the  craft  of  a  skilled  expert  to  drag 
damaging  admissions  from  the  mouth  of  the  man,  bewil- 
dered with  the  isolation  of  captivity,  sometimes  browbeat- 
ing him  with  threats,  sometimes  inventing  the  fiction  that 
an  accomplice  has  proved  his  guilt.  Until  the  twenty- 
eighth  year  of  the  Republic,  only  when  at  last  committed 
for  trial  was  the  accused  allowed  to  consult  a  lawyer  for 
his  defence.  The  system  of  "  secret  instruction "  flour- 
ished intact  during  a  generation  of  democratic  rule,  some- 
times indeed  criticised  in  the  press  when  it  gave  rise  to 
some  glaring  scandal,  such  as  the  suicide  of  an  unfortu- 
nate, conscious  of  his  innocence  yet  crushed  with  the 
anxiety  of  his  situation ;  or  when  an  eloquent  advocate, 
by  picturing  to  the  jury  the  hardship  of  the  ordeal, 
restored  his  client  to  his  family  broken  in  health  and 
fortune.  But  the  majority  of  the  victims  belong  to  the 
criminal  class;  so  in  a  nation  where  the  principle  of  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act  is  reverenced  only  by  a  few  theorists 
it  is  not  easy  to  effect  a  fundamental  change  for  the  sake 
of  sparing  from  wrong  an  occasional  honest  citizen  of  the 
Republic,  who  falls  under  the  suspicion  of  the  agents  of 
justice.     Thus  the  prolonged  tolerance  of  such  a  system 


CH.  II  LIMITATIONS  ON  PRIVATE  LIBERTY  135 

in  a  nation  where  universal  suffrage  is  supreme,  and 
where  the  freedom  of  the  press  in  denouncing  institutions 
is  of  unbridled  licence,  has  shown  that  its  idea  of  liberty 
has  a  peculiar  and  special  signification. ^ 

A  less  tragic  experience  of  the  national  conception  of 
liberty  may  befall  a  French  citizen  suspected  of  mere 
irregularity.  To  realise  the  plenitude  of  his  privilege  in 
living  under  a  Republic,  he  leaves  his  home  one  day  to 
hear  M.  Aulard,  the  lecturer  at  the  Sorbonne,  demon- 
strate that  human  happiness  reached  its  greatest  height 
under  the  regime  proclaimed  in  1792.  As  he  returns 
past  the  statue  of  Danton  he  wonders  how  the  country- 
men of  that  lover  of  liberty  could  have  submitted  to  the 
Second  Empire,  when  even  the  domicile  of  a  citizen  'was 
not  exempt  from  violation;  and  thus  reflecting  he  reaches 
his  door.  A  scene  of  disorder  awaits  him :  the  drawers 
of  his  study,  the  cupboards  of  his  chamber,  are  broken 
open ;  the  house  would  seem  to  have  been  ransacked  by 
burglars  in  broad  daylight.  But  he  hears  that  the  dis- 
array has  been  caused  not  by  enemies  of  the  law  but  by 
its  emissaries.  He  is  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  outrage  : 
he  is  not  an  anarchist  capable  of  secreting  dynamite,  nor 
a  financier  given  to  bribing  members  of  Parliament  and 
keeping  their  receipts,  nor  in  any  category  of  persons 
normally  subject  to  domiciliary  visitations  of  the  police. 

1  Criminal  procedure  has  at  last  been  somewhat  modified  in  the  28th 
year  of  the  Republic  by  the  efforts  of  M.  Constans,  after  the  exposure  of 
the  evils  of  the  "secret  instruction"  by  an  eminent  public  prosecutor, 
M.  Jean  Cruppi.  But  law  reformers  are  sceptical  about  the  practical 
results  of  the  refonn  (which  permits  an  accused  person  to  employ  an 
advocate  during  the  private  preliminary  inquiry),  as  there  is  no  prospect 
of  the  magistracy  adopting,  or  of  public  opinion  enforcing,  the  doctrine 
which  presumes  the  possible  innocence  of  an  untried  prisoner. 


136     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  t 

But  he  has  been  denounced  as  a  smoker  of  cigars  im- 
ported without  official  permission,  and  though  the  charge 
is  untrue,  the  Government  monopoly  of  tobacco  is  so 
important  that  the  mere  suspicion  of  an  infringement  of 
it  calls  for  measures  of  a  terror-striking  nature.  Lord 
Eldon  is  said  to  have  remarked,  in  the  days  when  Eng- 
lishmen were  put  to  death  for  minor  offences  against 
property,  that  if  the  capital  penalty  were  relaxed,  no 
man's  overcoat  would  be  safe  hanging  up  in  his  hall : 
and  so  if  Frenchmen  did  not  know  that  the  mere  posses- 
sion of  contraband  cigars  subjected  them  to  rigours 
appropriate  for  coiners  or  for  bomb-makers,  they  might 
refuse  to  smoke  the  insipid  state-manufactures  of  Pantin 
and  of  Chateauroux. 

The  submission  of  the  French  nation,  a  century  after 
the  Revolution,  to  limitations  on  private  liberty  such  as 
these,  which  modern  democracies  do  not  usually  consider 
necessary  for  orderly  government,  may  be  referred  to 
several  causes.  To  begin  with,  their  hardship  affects 
only  a  small  proportion  of  the  community.  The  average 
Frenchman  who  accepts  any  existing  regime,  and  who 
has  no  illusions  about  the  philosophical  doctrine  of  the 
Revolution,  will  say  that  all  government  rests  on  the 
surrender  of  a  certain  amount  of  personal  liberty ;  and 
though  in  principle  he  may  object  to  the  way  in  which 
untried  prisoners  are  treated,  and  to  the  wide  powers 
given  to  the  police  of  violating  private  domicile,  yet 
as  these  abuses  in  most  cases  incommode  only  persons 
dangerous  to  society,  he  does  not  deem  it  worth  while 
to  agitate  for  reform.  As  we  have  seen,  the  sole 
occasion  in  French  history  when  there  was  a  great 
popular  movement   rousing   the  whole   nation   was  the 


CH.  II  LIMITATIONS  ON  PRIVATE  LIBERTY  137 

Revolution,  of  which  the  immediate  cause  was  the  bad 
fiscal  system  oppressive  to  every  one  excepting  the  privi- 
leged. Then  again  there  is  no  public  opinion  in  France 
as  we  understand  it  in  England,  or  at  all  events,  no 
means  of  expressing  it.  The  spirit  of  the  press  of  the 
whole  country,  excepting  in  matters  of  local  interest,  is 
regulated  by  the  journalists  of  Paris,  who  interpret 
merely  the  sentiments,  sometimes  conflicting,  sometimes 
unanimous,  of  the  Boulevards,  and  the  newspaper  is 
not  used  by  the  public  for  airing  its  grievances  by  means 
of  letters  to  the  editor.  Moreover,  the  legislature,  as 
we  shall  see,  though  called  a  Parliament,  is  not  utilised 
as  a  parliamentary  people  would  make  use  of  it  for 
quietly  redressing  the  grievances  of  the  day ;  questions 
and  deputations  to  ministers,  petitions  to  the  two  Houses, 
pledges  demanded  of  members,  and,  in  fine,  all  methods 
of  constitutional  agitation  are  unpractised  in  France. 
This  is  the  corollary  of  the  national  tendency  which 
survives  all  regimes.  Louis  Napoleon  may  take  down 
the  inscription  of  Liberty  and  the  Third  Republic  may 
put  it  up  again,  but  all  the  time  the  French  people  like 
to  be  governed :  in  the  intervals  of  their  revolutions 
they  prefer  to  be  driven  not  with  a  loose  rein,  but  feeling 
the  hand  of  authority  directing  them.  In  a  democracy 
which  voluntarily  confers  on  the  State  such  arbitrary 
powers  to  encroach  on  its  personal  liberty,  a  special  sig- 
nification must  be  attached  to  that  word. 


II 

There  is  another  aspect  of  the  subject  of   Liberty  in 
France  which  calls  for  separate  consideration.     A  century 


138  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

after  the  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man  proclaimed 
the  free  exercise  of  opinion,  religious  or  otherwise,  so 
much  intolerance  lingers  in  the  land  that  it  has  been 
said  that  a  Frenchman's  conception  of  Liberty  is  liberty 
for  ideas  in  accordance  with  his  own.  Intolerance  is  a 
vice  not  peculiar  to  France.  It  has  disfigured  the  annals 
of  all  civilised  peoples,  notably  in  connection  with  con- 
troversies kindled  by  the  exercise  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  Latin  races  having 
practised  it  with  unedifying  rivalry.  I  wish,  therefore, 
in  dealing  with  this  question,  to  guard  against  the  cen- 
sorious attitude  of  a  stranger  pleading  the  superiority 
of  his  own  nation  ;  my  design  merely  is  to  show  that 
the  French  Revolution,  for  all  its  boasted  doctrine  of 
emancipation  of  the  human  race,  has  perhaps  been  the 
cause  of  France  enjoying  less  liberty  than  other  countries 
where  its  principle  has  not  been  enunciated  as  an  ab- 
stract formula  at  seasons  of  insurrection. 

One  way  in  which  the  great  Revolution  conduced  to 
the  acuter  phases  of  intolerance  surviving  longer  in 
France  than  in  England,  was  in  its  destruction  of  sec- 
tarian subdivision,  whence  the  polemical  forces  of  the 
nation  ever  since  have  been  arrayed  against  one  another 
in  two  definite  and  irreconcilable  camps.  On  the  eve  of 
Voltaire's  birth,  Calvinists  were  persecuted  by  Catholics, 
Jesuits  fought  with  Jansenists,  and  Galileans  resisted 
Ultramontanes.  At  his  death  the  conflict  between  the 
pretensions  of  the  Church  and  the  doctrine  of  free 
inquiry  had  grown  so  keen  that  little  place  was  left 
for  minor  controversies,  and  the  great  upheaval  had  be- 
come inevitable.  The  Revolution  came,  rooting  up 
society  from   its   foundations,   and   when  the  disturbed 


CH.  II  LIBERTY  IN  OPINION  139 

elements  settled  down  again,  the  two  conflicting  influ- 
ences came  forth  in  clearly  defined  mutual  oppugnancy. 
The  persecutions  of  the  clergy  in  the  struggle,  and  the 
confiscation  of  their  possessions,  added  a  new  article  to 
the  Catholic  faith,  that  of  hostility  to  the  principles  of 
the  Revolution,  which  henceforth  were  professed  by  the 
bulk  of  the  nation,  though  variously  interpreted.  The 
Concordat  consolidated  the  Church  without  reconciling 
it  to  the  new  order  of  things ;  and  through  all  the 
regimes  which  have  succeeded  one  another,  indepen- 
dently of  the  strife  of  party  and  of  dynasty,  though  some- 
times associated  with  their  fortunes,  the  French  nation 
has  contained  two  great  discordant  sections,  representing 
the  civil  and  the  ecclesiastical  power.  Their  antagonism 
for  one  another  has  not  been  softened  or  diverted  by  the 
rivalries  of  manifold  sects,  for  the  Protestant  minority 
has  existed  only  in  scattered  localities. 

The  political  conflict  between  the  two  forces  in  the 
early  years  of  the  Third  Republic  will  be  mentioned 
later.  All  that  need  be  said  of  it  here  is  that  the  cleri- 
cal party  was  the  first  aggressor.  Not  taking  to  heart 
the  admonition  of  the  Founder  of  the  Church,  "omnes 
enim  qui  acceperint  gladium,  gladio  peribunt,"  it  impetu- 
ously drew  the  sword  and  provoked  a  merciless  reprisal. 
The  spirit  of  the  clergy  after  the  War,  outside  the  field 
of  politics,  was  displayed  by  Mgr.  Dupanloup,  who, 
though  he  asserted  his  own  liberty  of  opinion  before 
the  Pope  himself,  did  not  extend  the  same  freedom  to 
his  countrymen  more  undisciplined  than  he.  So  when, 
in  spite  of  his  opposition,  Littre  was  elected  to  the  Acad- 
emy in  1871,  the  Bishop  of  Orleans  gathered  his  purple 
robes  around  him  lest  the  great  philologer,  who  was  also 


140  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

a  positivist,  should  touch  their  hem,  and  withdrew  from 
the  learned  company  in  which  four  cardinals  and  four 
other  prelates  of  the  Church  in  its  days  of  power  had 
sat  side  by  side  with  Voltaire.^ 

In  contrast  with  the  attitude  of  this  Galilean  dignitary 
to  a  heterodox  Frenchman  of  eminence  may  be  noted  the 
cordial  feeling  which  Cardinal  Manning  cherished  for  Mr. 
Matthew  Arnold ;  and  it  is  probable  that  in  a  secular 
society,  such  as  is  the  French  Academy,  he  would  have 
preferred  as  a  colleague  the  author  of  Literature  and  Dog- 
ma to  his  episcopal  opponent  of  the  Vatican  Council. 
Manning,  the  unbending  churchman  approved  at  Rome, 
could  maintain  friendly  relations  with  a  persuasive 
doubter :  Dupanloup,  whose  own  creed  was  held  insuffi- 
cient to  entitle  him  to  a  scarlet  hat,  wished,  on  theological 
grounds,  to  keep  a  lexicographer  out  of  a  company  engaged 
in  dictionary  making.  This  seems  to  be  an  example  of 
the  promotion  of  tolerance  in  England  by  the  multiformity 
of  sects  and  creeds.  If  Cardinal  Manning  had  been  the 
head  of  the  one  religion  prominent  in  the  realm,  of  which 
the  only  serious  rivals  were  irreligion  or  indifference,  his 
social  and  worldly  relations  would  have  been  restricted. 
The  old  Oxford  man  could  cultivate  sympathetic  intimacy 
with  younger  members  of  his  University  without  reference 
to  their  faith  :  but  if  Renan,  whose  opinions  resemble 
those  of  Arnold,  and  whose  abjuration  had  not  been  more 
extensive  than  that  of  Manning  in  the  opposite  direc- 
tion, had,  from  love  of  his  old  college,  frequented  the 

1  Cardinals  A.  G.  de  Rohan,  de  Rohan-Soubise,  de  Luynes,  and  de 
Bernis ;  Archbishop  de  Boisgelin  ;  Bishops  Boyer,  Surian,  and  de  Roque- 
laure.  All  these  ecclesiastics  were  not  simultaneously  of  the  Acad^mie 
Fran^aise,  but  Voltaire  was  a  member  from  1747  to  1778,  so  saw  several 
generations  of  Immortals. 


CH.  II  THE   CHURCH  AND   FREE-THOUGHT  141 

society  of  Sulpicians,  loud  would  have  been  the  scandal 
in  France. 

The  idea  that  the  population  of  both  sexes  is  roughly 
divided  into  two  great  sections,  consisting  of  those  who 
more  or  less  implicitly  bow  to  the  authority  of  the  Church, 
and  of  those  who  more  or  less  consistently  hold  that 
thought  is  free,  encourages  the  teachers  of  the  first  category 
not  only  in  exclusiveness,  but  also  in  the  tradition  of 
Rome  which  would  circumscribe  the  sources  of  human 
knowledge  available  for  mankind.  Of  all  the  works  ever 
proscribed  by  the  wisdom  of  the  Congregation  of  the  Index 
there  are  none  which  the  French  clergy  more  heartily  ban 
than  those  of  Voltaire,  until  his  name  in  their  sermons  has 
come  to  represent  the  principle  of  infidelity,  like  the  "  Jews 
and  Turks"  in  the  English  liturgy.  The  position  in 
French  estimation  of  Voltaire  is  about  as  much  affected 
by  the  declamations  of  the  priesthood  as  the  conversion  of 
the  Hebrew  community  in  England  is  quickened,  or  the 
Eastern  question  modified,  by  the  prayers  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church.  The  obloquy  poured  upon  him  is  too 
indiscriminate,  and  there  are  multitudes  of  French  people, 
especially  in  the  rural  districts,  who  would  never  hear  his 
name  but  for  the  vague  sound  of  it  from  the  pulpit  after 
the  Gospel  on  Sunday  mornings.  An  excellent  Savoyard 
priest,  whom  I  knew,  used  to  exhort  his  flock  "  to  burn 
the  works  of  Voltaire  and  of  Rousseau  in  their  libraries." 
Among  the  toil-worn  rustics  whom  he  addressed,  the  richest 
in  printed  possessions  rarely  had  even  a  cheap  newspaper 
to  read ;  but  the  simple-minded  Cure,  a  peasant  himself, 
cherished  the  admonitions  he  had  heard  at  the  Seminary 
across  the  lake  at  Annecy,  the  city  of  Madame  de  Warens 
as  well  as  of  Sainte  Chantal ;  so  there  were  local  reasons 


142  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

for  including  the  scandalous  Jean-Jacques  in  the  maledic- 
tions usually  reserved  in  other  dioceses  for  the  philosopher 
of  Ferney. 

Although  the  spiritual  declensions  of  these  villagers 
were  not  due  to  their  literary  temptations,  in  the  next 
parish  there  was  a  house  containing  a  library,  of  which 
the  good  Abbe  did  not  know,  and  in  it  M.  Taine  had 
written  of  Voltaire's  work,  "  It  includes  the  entire  scope 
of  human  knowledge,  and  I  know  not  what  idea  of  im- 
portance would  be  wanting  in  a  man  who  had  for  his 
breviary  the  Dialogues,  the  Dictionary,  and  the  Ro- 
mances."^ Few  of  his  contemporaries  had  as  vast  a  stock 
of  learning  as  Taine,  so  the  testimonial  is  of  value.  Vol- 
taire, in  spite  of  his  inaccuracies,  his  prejudices,  and  his 
false  canons  of  criticism,  the  more  he  is  studied  the  more 
he  amazes  with  the  force  of  his  genius.  Ideas  without 
number,  which  later  generations  regard  as  novel  or  auda- 
cious, he  has  anticipated.  Mr.  Huxley  related  that  he 
had  a  friend  who  was  one  of  the  most  original  thinkers  in 
the  world,  but  he  never  emitted  an  original  thought,  as, 
never  having  read  anything,  he  was  unaware  that  others 
had  come  to  identical  conclusions.  The  study  of  Voltaire 
gives  the  impression  that  there  are  many  of  our  modern 
teachers  in  the  same  case,  as  far  as  he  is  concerned.  If 
we  take  the  one  small  section  of  his  work  which  has 
specially  brought  him  under  the  ban  of  the  Church,  that 
in  which  he  deals  with  revealed  religion,  we  find  his 
judgments  constantly  reproduced  in  our  day  as  novelties. 
If  an  Anglican  clergyman,  in  essaying  the  reconciliation  of 
science  with  revelation,  throws  overboard  a  Mosaic  narra- 
tive or  a  Messianic  prophecy  ;  if  a  Presbyterian  minister, 
^  Ancien  Regime,  liv.  iv.  c.  i.  4. 


VOLTAIRE  143 


for  similar  recusancy,  incurs  pursuit  for  heresy,  the  argu- 
ments or  inferences  of  each  have  a  familiar  sound  to  those 
who  have  studied  Voltaire.  This  is  no  reflection  on  the 
learning  or  the  good  faith  of  such  seekers  after  truth,  for 
German  criticism,  which  undermines  the  impregnable 
rock  of  Holy  Scripture  by  the  mechanism  of  Oriental 
erudition,  not  at  the  disposal  of  Voltaire,  arrives  at  the 
same  results  ;  while  at  the  other  end  of  the  intellectual 
scale  the  questions  of  the  Kaffir  catechumen  which  per- 
plexed Dr.  Colenso,  who  was  first  an  arithmetician  and 
then  a  bishop,  are  to  be  found  in  Voltaire's  PMlosopMe. 

The  beautiful  landscape  amid  which  Taine  wrote  his 
eulogy  of  Voltaire  teems  with  associations  exhorting 
Frenchmen  to  tolerance.  Savoy  was  in  language  and  in 
sentiment  a  part  of  France  when  politically  distinct,  and 
its  residents,  both  natives  and  settlers,  have  for  centuries 
given  lustre  to  French  literature  and  eloquence.  Above 
the  pleasant  home  of  M.  Taine,  by  the  Lake  of  Annecy, 
stands  the  Chateau  of  Menthon,  whence,  in  the  dim 
Middle  Ages,  St.  Bernard  went  to  found  the  Alpine 
sanctuaries  which  bear  his  name.  The  family  of  the 
Saint  still  inhabits  the  castle,  and  thither  every  year  came 
Mgr.  Dupanloup  to  recruit  his  pious  vigour  in  the  hill- 
country  of  his  birth.  The  lattice  of  his  chamber  looks  on 
one  of  the  fairest  prospects  in  Europe.  In  the  foreground 
is  the  knoll  by  the  water-side,  where  lies  buried  the  phi- 
losopher whom  the  Bishop  would  have  kept  out  of  the 
French  Academy  had  he  lived  and  had  his  way;  at  the  end 
of  the  lake  rise  the  old  battlements  of  the  city  where  repose 
the  remains  of  a  Savoyard  prelate  more  illustrious  than 
the  eminent  Galilean  ;  to  Annecy,  a  century  after  St. 
Francois  de  Sales  had  been  laid  to  rest  in  the  convent  of 


144     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

the  Visitation,  came  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau  from  Geneva, 
which  lies  beneath  the  low  ridge  of  the  Jura,  visible  on 
the  horizon,  marking  also  the  spot  where  Voltaire  retired 
for  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  to  exercise  his  sway 
over  the  generation  about  to  see  the  French  Revolu- 
tion. 

No  doubt  there  are  earnest  people  who  for  different 
reasons  would  consider  that  the  existence  of  each  of  these 
men  was  a  misfortune  for  the  French  race.  Ardent 
Protestants  might  deplore  the  conversion  of  the  Chablais 
by  St.  FranQois  from  the  Reformed  faith.  Protestants 
might  join  with  Catholics  in  deprecating  Voltaire's 
onslaughts  on  their  common  Christianity.  Lovers  of 
orderly  progress  might  regret  the  sentimental  abstractions 
of  Rousseau  which  aided  the  anarchy  of  the  Revolution. 
Ultramontanes,  as  well  as  free-thinkers,  might  object  to 
the  teachings  of  the  masterful  Bishop  of  Orleans  ;  and 
champions  of  the  Revolution  might,  equally  with  the 
orthodox,  lament  the  destruction  of  their  idols  by  Taine. 
But  the  greatness  of  France  has  sprung  from  the  diver- 
sity of  intellect  which  has  formed  and  illustrated  the 
French  language.  Perfect  tolerance  is  an  impossible 
ideal,  as  it  implies  the  disappearance  of  human  pride  and 
passion.  Yet  even  in  France,  where  the  course  of  history 
has  been  unfavourable  to  its  approximation,  its  beauties 
are  recognised  if  not  practised.  On  the  facade  of  the 
most  successful  of  modern  public  schools  in  Paris,  the 
Lycee  erected  by  the  munificence  of  M.  Janson  de  Sailly, 
in  the  agreeable  quarter  which  lies  between  the  Champs 
Elysees  and  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  the  bust  of  Bossuet 
is  seen  side  by  side  with  that  of  Voltaire,  while  Fenelon's 
is   flanked  by  the   effigies  of  Rousseau  and  of  Moliere, 


CH.  n         THE  NEED  FOR  TOLERATION  IN  FRANCE  145 

both  of  whom  were  banned  by  the  Church  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Cambrai. 

Voltaire,  though  he  rallied  the  British  nation  on  the 
number  of  its  sects,  saw  that  this  was  of  greater  advan- 
tage to  the  cause  of  tolerance  than  the  tendency,  then 
developing  in  France,  to  range  the  community  into  two 
camps. ^  Since  his  time  religious  persuasions  have  mul- 
tiplied in  our  midst,  within  as  well  as  without  the  Estab- 
lished Church ;  and  could  he  have  looked  into  the  future 
he  would  have  observed  a  phenomenon  which  even  he 
could  not  have  anticipated.  He  would  have  seen  that 
the  diversity  of  creeds  in  England  has  been  much  more 
productive  of  tolerance  than  has  been  in  France  the  great 
Revolution  of  which  he  saw  the  approach  :  that  while 
the  celebration  by  his  countrymen  of  the  centenary  of 
his  death  was  denounced  by  Mgr.  Dupanloup  as  a  decla- 
ration of  war  on  Christianity,  Cardinal  Guibert  ordaining 
a  ceremony  at  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  to  expiate  the 
impious  fete,  the  Church  of  England  —  no  longer  the 
Erastian  institution  which  he  had  known  in  Bolingbroke's 
days,  but  an  active  agency  of  positive  doctrine  —  ex- 
tended its  charity  to  conspicuous  exponents  of  Vol- 
tairian philosophy.  Mr.  Arnold's  criticism  of  the  Book 
of  Isaiah,  Mr.  Tyndall's  suggestion  for  a  test  of  the 
efficacy  of  prayer,  and  Mr.  Huxley's  reflections  on  the 
Gadarene  swine  are  all  pure  Voltaire,  in  conclusion  if 
not  in  style  or  in  spirit;  yet  instead  of  being  refused 
Christian  burial,  as  their  precursor  was  by  the  Cure  of 

^  "  Je  crois  que  depuis  notre  revolution  I'Angleterre  est  le  pays  oil  le 
christianisme  fait  le  moins  de  mal.  La  raison  en  est  que  ce  torrent  est 
divis6  chez  nous  en  dix  ou  douze  ruisseaux,  soit  presbyt^riens  soit  autres 
dissenters."  —  Lettre  de  Milord  Cornsburi  a  Milord  Bolingbroke  (1736). 


146     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    rk.  i 

St.  Sulpice,  those  eminent  men  were  in  their  death  ac- 
corded the  same  rites  that  the  Church  of  England  be- 
stows on  its  strictest  sons.^ 

The  posthumous  treatment  of  Renan  and  of  Matthew 
Arnold  in  their  respective  countries  was  peculiarly  strik- 
ing. The  Comment  on  Christmas  is  a  piece  of  criticism 
as  destructive  of  orthodox  Christian  belief  as  anything 
ever  written  by  the  historian  of  Israel,  the  only  differ- 
ence being  that  Arnold  addressed  a  select  circle  of  cult- 
ured people,  while  Renan  was  a  philosopher  of  wider 
celebrity  and  influence.  In  England  Arnold  was  quietly 
laid  to  rest  in  a  peaceful  country  graveyard,  and  the 
comforting  office  of  the  national  Church  was  read  over 
the  remains  of  the  gentle  apostle  of  doubt,  without  any 
Englishman  daring  or  wishing  to  say  that  the  sacred 
rite  was  inappropriate  from  any  point  of  view.  But 
Renan's  funeral  was  a  pompous  anti-religious  spectacle; 
the  courtyard  of  the  College  de  France  was  decked  as 
a  Temple  of  Reason,  from  which  the  body  was  borne 
amid  red  wreaths,  like  those  which  survivors  of  the 
Commune  place  on  the  wall  at  Pere  la  Chaise  where 
their  comrades  were  shot.  Renan  would  not  have 
minded  the  maledictions  with  which  the  clerical  press 
saluted  his  death;  but  that  he,  a  fastidious  aristocrat 
by  instinct,  should  have  had  his  funeral  car  decked 
with    revolutionary    garlands,    and    acclaimed    by    the 

1  Of  course  it  may  be  urged  that  the  Church  of  England  is  so  broad 
that  not  only  may  eveiy  English  layman  claim  its  membership  irrespec- 
tive of  dogmatic  belief,  but  even  in  its  day  of  Catholic  revival  exponents 
of  free-thought  are  found  among  the  most  esteemed  of  its  clergy.  I  have 
the  best  reason  for  knowing  that  M.  Renan  brought  away  from  his  per- 
sonal intercourse  with  Mr.  Jowett  the  impression  that  their  attitude  to 
revealed  religion  was  practically  identical. 


CH.  II  RENAN  AND  MATTHEW  ARNOLD  147 

rabble,  would  have  sorely  vexed  his  soul.  It  was  a 
retribution  for  an  attitude  which  he  sometimes  assumed 
in  his  lifetime.  As  his  old  friend  Jules  Simon  said,  "  I 
forgave  him  for  being  a  doubter,  but  I  could  not  for- 
give him  for  rejoicing  in  his  doubts."  Far  different 
was  the  demeanour  of  Taine,  whose  scepticism  was  not 
exuberant,  and  who,  scandalised  at  the  unseemly  scene 
at  the  obsequies  of  Renan,  directed  that  he  should  be 
buried  according  to  the  Protestant  rite :  for  civil  inter- 
ment in  France  is  used  as  'a  political  demonstration. 

Ill 

It  is  a  notable  contrast  that  in  England,  amid  bitter 
feud  on  the  subject  of  funeral  rites,  universal  sentiment 
is  so  opposed  to  burial  without  prayers  that  it  is  con- 
sidered an  indignity,  reducing  man  to  the  level  of  the 
lower  animals,  which  even  a  suicide  should  be  spared  : 
whereas  in  France,  though  civil  obsequies  are  equally 
repugnant  to  mourners,  and  rare  outside  the  great  towns, 
they  are  sometimes,  in  the  case  of  Ministers  of  the  Repub- 
lic and  of  other  prominent  persons,  flaunted  before  the 
public,  as  though  to  deprive  weeping  women  and  chil- 
dren of  hope  and  consolation  were  an  act  of  civic  virtue.^ 
On  such  occasions  is  displayed  the  sectarian  spirit  ani- 

^  In  the  provinces  the  feeling  against  civil  interment  is  strong,  and 
even  in  the  case  of  anti-clerical  leaders  it  is  rare  that  their  families  permit 
their  political  colleagues  to  deprive  them  of  sacred  rites ;  though  the 
mother  or  the  widovr  is  sometimes  abused  in  the  anti-clerical  journals  for 
insisting  on  a  religious  service.  On  the  other  hand,  when  the  clericals 
for  a  short  season  got  the  upper  hand,  under  the  government  of  the 
Seize  Mai,  they  tried  coercive  measures  against  civil  funerals,  the  Pr^fet 
at  Lyons  decreeing  that  they  should  only  be  tolerated  before  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning. 


148     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

mating  the  exponents  of  free-thought.  The  French  term 
libre  pens^e  more  plainly  indicates  its  presumed  connec- 
tion with  Liberty,  yet  in  France  its  cult  has  produced 
the  most  curious  phase  of  intolerance  manifested  under 
the  Third  Republic.  Anti-clericalism  may  be  a  useful 
remedy  to  moderate  the  pretensions  of  the  sacerdotal 
caste  in  a  nation  where,  since  the  decline  of  Gallican- 
ism,  ecclesiastics  regard  themselves  sometimes  as  the 
mandatories  of  a  foreign  potentate ;  but  free-thinkers 
contravene  the  basis  of  their  own  profession  in  erecting 
anti-clericalism  into  a  dogma,  not  only  to  be  paraded  on 
occasions  like  that  of  a  public  civil  funeral,  but  even  to 
be  imposed  on  others  as  a  test  of  citizenship.  In  the 
unhappy  period  when  the  name  of  Ferry  was  associated 
with  outrages  offered  to  religious  communities  or  to 
sacred  emblems,  they  were  the  incidents  of  a  war  of 
religion,  of  which  the  tradition  has  always  been  more 
cruel  than  that  of  merely  secular  strife.  But  while  it 
was  the  clerical  faction  which  began  the  conflict,  in  their 
merciless  retaliation  M.  Paul  Bert  and  the  anti-clericals 
revealed  that  their  conception  of  liberty  did  not  include 
the  enjoyment  of  freedom  by  their  adversaries.  Every- 
day life  in  France  at  normal  times  unfortunately  abounds 
in  instances  of  the  application  of  their  doctrine. 

The  efforts  of  the  exponents  of  free-thought  to  penalise 
religious  observance  afford  a  peculiar  example.  In  Eng- 
land Dissenters  and  Catholics  used  to  be  punished  for 
attending  divine  worship  after  their  own  rites ;  and  in 
France,  from  1686  to  the  Revolution,  Protestants  were 
subject  to  similar  treatment.  But  in  neither  case  was 
Liberty  invoked  to  palliate  the  coercive  policy :  in  both 
countries  it  was  frankly  applied  to  enforce  conformity  to 


CH.  n  A  CURIOUS  PHASE  OF  INTOLERANCE  149 

the  creed  of  the  State.  The  intolerant  system  under  the 
Third  Republic  differs  from  all  persecutions  known  to 
history,  in  that  it  is  not  only  practised  in  the  name  of 
Liberty,  but  it  aims  at  laying  official  disability  on  an 
established  religion.  Not  that  there  is  any  vexatious 
legal  restraint  on  the  cult  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith 
analogous  to  the  English  Penal  Laws  or  to  the  Revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  The  clergy  are  free  to  provide 
public  offices  in  the  churches  for  every  hour  of  the  day 
and  the  night.  Nevertheless  a  French  citizen  who  is  de- 
pendent on  the  State  for  his  livelihood  is  not  always  at 
liberty  to  accompany  his  wife  and  his  children  to  mass  on 
Sunday  morning,  without  risking  his  future  prospects  and 
their  means  of  sustenance. 

"  No  one  has  any  idea  what  a  noxious  and  insupportable 
creature  is  the  anti-clerical  in  the  provinces.  Always 
eager  to  accuse  others  of  fanaticism,  he  is  the  bitterest 
and  most  oppressive  of  fanatics  himself.  Under  the  mask 
of  free-thought  he  would  like  to  prevent  his  neighbours 
from  thinking  differently  from  himself,  being  violently 
and  despotically  narrow,  for  all  his  boasts  of  liberal- 
mindedness.  If  he  were  only  a  harmless  fanatic  it  would 
not  matter  ;  but  he  is  an  aggressive  persecutor,  malig- 
nantly meddling  in  affairs  which  do  not  concern  him,  at- 
tacking or  denouncing  honest  folks,  public  functionaries 
and  others,  with  whose  conscience  he  has  nothing  to  do, 
threatening  them  on  account  of  their  opinions,  which  he 
calls  '  subversive '  because  they  do  not  agree  with  his. 
If  he  be  a  town-councillor,  or  in  any  similar  position,  he 
uses  all  his  influence  to  set  up  irreligion  as  a  standard  of 
citizenship."^ 

1  Journal  des  Vebats,  November  17,  1893.    The  Debats  and  the  Temps 


160  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

The  foregoing  quotation  is  not  from  an  organ  of  the 
sacristy.  It  is  from  the  Journal  des  DShats,  to  which 
Renan  and  Taine  were  contributors  as  long  as  they  lived ; 
and  under  the  Third  Republic  it  has  had  to  recognise 
that  the  sectarian  intolerance  of  the  later  Jacobins  is  a 
greater  peril  to  liberty  in  France  than  the  pretensions 
of  the  Church. 

That  picture  was  drawn  in  an  Eastern  department. 
In  the  West  the  following  incident  came  under  my  own 
notice.  The  postmaster  of  a  town  in  the  Vendee,  who, 
as  is  usual  in  that  region,  observed  his  religious  duties, 
was  sent  for  by  the  sous-Prdfet,  who  said  to  him  :  "  It  is 
reported  that  you  are  a  constant  attendant  at  church 
on  Sunday ;  more  than  that,  you  always  take  a  book 
with  you ;  and  a  man  who  follows  the  service  with  a 
book  must  not  be  surprised  if  he  is  put  down  as  a  clerical. 
Besides,  there  are  your  daughters :  the  eldest,  who  is 
being  educated  at  the  convent,  sings  in  the  chapel  choir, 
and  her  sister  makes  the  collection  at  the  parish  church. 
Now  all  these  facts  are  noted  against  you  here  in  your 
dossier,  and  I  think  it  fair  to  warn  you  that  you  are  get- 
ting the   reputation   of  being  a   Clerical."  ^    The  post- 

(which,  if  it  has  any  religious  bias,  is  disposed  to  favour  liberal  Protes- 
tantism) are  the  only  two  journals  which  I  have  consulted  to  supplement 
my  personal  observations  of  anti-clerical  intolerance,  as  their  impartiality 
is  unimpeachable.  The  testimony  of  Clerical  and  Reactionary  organs 
should  not  be  accepted  uncorroborated  on  this  subject,  any  more  than 
that  of  the  Radical  and  anti-Clerical  press  on  the  misdeeds  of  the  clergj' ; 
but  the  journals  of  the  Extreme  Left,  especially  in  the  provinces,  often 
reveal  with  great  candour  the  proceedings  of  their  party  in  their  strife 
■with  the  Church. 

^  Dossier  is  the  name  given  to  the  confidential  collection  of  documents 
relating  to  every  functionary  of  the  State,  which  his  chiefs  consult  when 
there  is  question  of  his  promotion  or  dismissal.  Each  bishop  has  his 
dossier  carefully  annotated  at  the  Ministry  of  Public  Worship,  each  mag- 


CH.  II  THE  BIGOTRY  OF  FREB-THINKERS  151 

master  consulted  the  Cure,  who  is  a  rare  example  among 
the  French  parochial  clergy  of  an  accomplished  man  of 
the  world,  and  he  said,  "  You  have  your  wife  and  children 
to  think  about,  so  you  ought  not  to  sacrifice  your  chances 
of  promotion  for  trifles  not  essential.  Leave  your  prayer- 
book  at  home  if  it  offends  the  anti-clericals,  tell  the 
good  Sisters  not  to  let  your  daughter  sing  in  the  con- 
vent choir,  and  I  will  find  another  of  our  young  friends 
to  take  the  place  of  your  second  girl  in  making  the  col- 
lection here  on  Sunday."  The  venerable  rector's  advice 
was  sagacious :  nevertheless  in  a  land  where  such  sagac- 
ity is  needful  it  is  clear  that  the  term  Liberty  has  a 
peculiar  and  special  meaning.  The  sous-Prefet  in  this 
case  was  an  official  of  mild  and  considerate  demeanour, 
who  seemed  incapable  of  tyranny.  His  warning  of  the 
postmaster  was  probably  an  act  of  kindness;  for  in  the 
Vendee,  a  Royalist  as  well  as  a  Catholic  stronghold,  an 
agent  of  the  Government  would  have  strict  orders  from 
the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  to  flatter  the  zeal  of  the 
anti-clerical  party. 

The  form  which  persecution  takes  in  different  coun- 
tries, like  that  of  all  other  human  action,  is  necessarily 
affected  by  the  interior  economy  and  the  institutions  of 
each  community.  In  England  instances  of  tyranny  may 
be  found  practised  on  the  one  hand  by  members  of  the 
rural  clergy,  and  on  the  other  by  trade-unions  in  indus- 
trial districts ;  the  reason  being  that  the  ancient  organi- 
sation of  the  parish  and  the  modern  organisation  of  the 
trade-guild    have    put   facilities   for    oppression    at   the 

istrate  at  the  Ministry  of  Justice  ;  while  the  reports  relating  to  the  great 
army  of  minor  officials  in  the  provinces  are  kept  and  revised  at  the  pre- 
fectures and  sous-prefectures  of  the  departments.     See  vol.  ii.  p.  113. 


162     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

disposal  of  men  of  domineering  temper,  who  are  found 
in  all  nations  and  in  all  classes  of  life.  But  the  fore- 
going incident  could  have  no  counterpart  among  us, 
because  pressure  of  the  kind  described  can  only  in  a 
highly  centralised  state  be  brought  to  bear  upon  public 
functionaries.  In  France  they  form  a  numerous  body, 
ready  to  be  organised  for  political  purposes  apart  from 
their  official  duties.  The  system  was  constructed  to 
work  as  an  essential  portion  of  the  machinery  of  auto- 
cratic government :  but  under  parliamentary  institutions 
and  unstable  ministries  the  direction  of  the  centralised 
machine  has,  as  we  shall  see,  passed  out  of  the  hands  of 
ephemeral  ministers  into  those  of  local  committees,  self- 
constituted  and  irresponsible,  which  often  exercise  a 
sinister  despotism  in  provincial  neighbourhoods.  Thus 
the  functionaries  who  under  illiberal  regimes  have  been 
coldly  looked  upon  for  neglecting  religious  observances 
are,  under  the  liberal  dispensation  of  the  Republic,  de- 
nounced as  enemies  of  the  Government  if  they  go  to 
church. 

The  liberty  which  the  anti-clerical  sectaries  withhold 
from  public  officials  they  do  not  willingly  extend  to 
private  individuals  who  wish  to  stand  well  with  the  party 
in  power.  In  a  part  of  Touraine  associated  less  with  the 
religious  strife  of  the  Renaissance  in  that  region  than 
with  the  earlier  tradition  of  Joan  of  Arc,  whom  clericals 
and  anti-clericals  equally  extol,  near  the  road  between 
Azay-le-Rideau  and  Chinon,  is  the  small  village  of  Vil- 
laines.  The  smiling  landscape  through  which  the  Maid 
passed  on  her  miraculous  mission  to  Charles  VII.  does 
not  seem  to  have  retained  her  mystical  spirit,  for  "  A 
Group  of  Republicans  "  there  felt  moved  to  denounce  in  a 


CH.  II  THE  ANTI-CLERICAL  IDEA  OF  LIBERTY  153 

journal  of  Tours  the  following  scandal :  "  In  our  com- 
mune," they  said,  "  the  cur^,  wishing  to  make  his  services 
more  attractive,  has  been  looking  out  for  singers.  With 
our  good  pastor's  efforts  to  increase  his  income  we  have 
nothing  to  do,  but  what  does  astonish  us  is  to  see  in  the 
choir  two  sons  of  an  old  democrat  hitherto  a  staunch  lib- 
eral and  anti-clerical.  Is  it  possible  that  a  soldier  of  the 
Republican  army  has  failed  to  bring  up  his  children  in 
sound  principles,  or  has  he  let  them  be  perverted  by  the 
cur^  to  abandon  '  Marianne '  for  the  Blessed  Virgin  ?  In 
either  case  he  would  do  well  to  give  us  a  plain  answer, 
in  order  to  allay  the  malevolent  suspicions  which  he  has 
aroused  in  the  hearts  of  his  friends."  ^ 

Similar  instances  might  be  quoted  from  every  depart- 
ment, and  unhappily  it  is  often  too  true  that  the  tyranny 
of  free -thought  is  retaliation  for  acts  of  clerical  intoler- 
ance in  the  past.  But  the  free-thinking  sectarians  are 
not  content  with  attacking  the  pretensions  of  Rome,  or 
even  of  Christianity.  The  public  expression  of  any 
religious  belief  excites  their  arrogant  wrath.  Thus  at 
Dole  in  the  Jura  it  is  the  custom  each  winter  to  commem- 
orate the  inhabitants  who  died  in  1870  defending  their 
homes  against  the  Prussians.  One  year  the  mayor  issued 
a  placard  inviting  the  population  to  take  part  in  the  usual 
ceremony,  in  which  he  said,  "  Our  pious  souvenirs  will  ^o 
beyond  the  tomb  to  show  our  fellow-townsmen  that  we  do 
not  forget  them."  In  the  land  of  the  Sequani  once  ruled 
by   Marcus    Aurelius,   there   are   cinerary   relics   of    the 

^  U iSclaireur :  organe  de  la  democratie  socialiste  de  V  Quest,  5  Mai, 
1895.  With  this  may  be  compared  the  proceedings  of  the  "  Possibiliste- 
Broussiste ' '  group  of  the  social  ists  in  a  quarter  of  Paris  who  rejected  the  can- 
didature of  one  of  their  number  for  the  Municipal  Council  because  it  was 
ascertained  he  had  been  married  in  a  church  (^Temps,  23  Decembre,  1892). 


154  THE   REVOLUTION  AND   MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

Roman  occupation  before  the  introduction  of  Christian- 
ity, on  which  is  inscribed  a  more  definite  evocation  of  the 
dead  :  but  the  freemasons  of  the  town-council  saw  in  the 
language  of  the  mayor  a  clerical  manoeuvre  to  make  oflB- 
cial  "the  deplorable  superstition  of  a  life  beyond  the 
tomb,"  and  an  expurgated  placard  was  pasted  over  the 
other. 

As  there  are  few  of  the  French  who  do  not  practise  the 
pathetic  cult  of  the  dead,  an  incident  like  this  displays 
a  peculiar  feature  of  the  tyranny  of  free-thought.  In 
every  other  religious  persecution  in  France,  from  the 
martyrdoms  of  Lyons  and  Vienne  in  the  second  century 
to  the  dragonnades  of  the  Protestants  under  Louis  XIV., 
the  oppressed  have  been  a  feeble  minority ;  but  under  the 
Third  Republic  it  is  the  minority  which  imposes  its  nar- 
row policy  on  the  majority.  In  the  whole  population 
there  is  not  one  person  in  a  hundred  who  is  an  anti- 
religious  bigot,  and  even  among  the  men  of  France  who 
form  the  electorate,  the  sectaries  of  free-thought  are  a 
small  minority,  smaller  than  the  clerical  party  of  the  other 
extreme.  The  great  majority  of  Frenchmen  are  tolerant 
or  indifferent ;  they  resent  ecclesiastical  interference,  but 
they  have  no  active  sympathy  with  the  zealots  of  anti- 
clericalism.  But  the  latter  in  their  masonic  lodges,  which 
in  France  are  not  mere  convivial  or  charitable  sodalities, 
and  their  local  committees,  are  effectively  organised  and 
are  thus  a  potent  influence  in  the  government  of  the  coun- 
try. When  we  examine  the  Parliamentary  System,  we 
shall  see  that  one  sign  of  its  unsuitability  to  the  French 
temperament  is  that  it  invests  with  undue  power  a  minor- 
ity composed  of  the  least  worthy  elements  of  the  nation, 
this  being  a  worse  evil  and  more  subversive  of  liberty  than 


CH.  II  THE   TYRANNY  OF  THE  MINORITY  155 

the  regular  delegation  of  authority  to  an  autocratic  gov- 
ernment. Here  we  have  to  observe  the  constraint  laid  by 
the  minority  on  the  representatives  of  the  whole  nation. 

About  the  tradition  imposed  on  the  President  of  the 
Republic  never  to  pronounce  the  name  of  God  in  any 
public  utterance,  for  fear  of  offending  the  free-thinkers,  I 
will  say  nothing,  as  the  subject  is  somewhat  delicate. 
The  contrary  practice  of  all  other  civilised  rulers,  from 
the  Emperor  of  Russia  to  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  is  not  permitted  in  France,  where  the  sacred  name 
is  regarded  by  the  anti-clericals  as  such  a  symbol  of  super- 
stition that  a  school  edition  of  La  Fontaine,  who  passed 
for  a  Liberal  in  his  day,  was  by  them  expurgated  of  all 
reference  to  the  Deity,  in  order  not  to  mislead  the  young 
with  ideas  too  fabulous  even  to  be  tolerated  in  fable. ^ 
M.  Felix  Faure  would  be  the  last  to  give  his  voluntary 
approval  to  such  sectarian  vagaries,  for  he  seems  to  be  a 
large-minded  representative  of  the  tolerant  majority  of 
the  French  nation.  Yet  like  every  other  functionary  of 
the  Republic,  he  submits  to  the  terrorism  of  the  anti-cler- 
icals.    Otherwise   it  would   not  be   explicable  why  the 

1  Among  the  emendations  made  in  the  edition  of  La  Fontaine  for  the 
use  of  schools,  drawn  up  by  the  direction  of  the  Municipal  Covmcil  of 
Paris,  was  in  the  opening  of  the  well-known  fable  which  begins :  — 

Petit  poisson  deviendra  grand 
Pourvu  que  Dieu  lui  prete  vie. 

For  which  the  second  line  was  made  to  read  "Pourvu  que  I'on  lui  pr6te 
vie."  The  story  was  revived  by  the  Temps  in  calling  attention  to  a  simi- 
lar proceeding  of  the  Conseil-G^n^ral  of  the  Sarthe,  at  its  meeting  in 
August,  1896,  when  on  the  motion  of  M,  Leporch^,  a  Radical  senator,  a 
vote  of  censure  was  pa-ssed  on  the  inspector  of  primary  schools  at  Le  Mans 
for  setting  questions  in  an  examination  "which  implied  the  existence  of 
a  God."  It  should  be  said  that  the  population  of  the  Sarthe  is  decidedly 
Catholic,  a  large  minority  being  actively  clerical  in  tendency. 


166     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

Chief  of  the  State,  who  under  the  Concordat  has  to  pre- 
side at  semi-ecclesiastical  ceremonies,  —  such  as  the  inves- 
titure of  French  cardinals  with  the  scarlet  hat,  —  should 
avoid  official  appearance  in  churches,  as  though  they  were 
places  of  ill  repute.^  He  goes  to  Reims  to  inaugurate  a 
statue  of  Joan  of  Arc,  but  though  the  only  association  of 
the  Maid  with  that  city  is  in  the  cathedral  where  she 
brought  Charles  VII.  to  be  crowned,  the  President  dares 
not  set  foot  in  it,  and  delays  his  arrival  till  the  festal  ser- 
vice is  over  within  the  glorious  walls.  He  makes  an  offi- 
cial tour  in  Brittany  where.  Republican  or  Royalist,  every 
man  is  an  ardent  Catholic,  yet  though  spending  a  Sunday 
in  the  cathedral  town  of  Quimper  and  welcomed  at  the 
Prefecture  by  the  Bishop,  he  may  not  gratify  the  pious 
population  of  Cornouailles  by  attending  service  in  the 
shrine  of  St.  Corentin  for  fear  of  the  criticisms  of  the 
anti-clerical  press  in  Paris. 

President  Faure  did  on  one  occasion  make  an  official 
visit  to  a  church.  When  the  Tsar  of  Russia  came  to 
Paris,  the  young  autocrat  profited  from  the  curious  defer- 
ence paid  him  by  the  French  nation  to  read  the  Republi- 
can Government  a  lesson  in  religious  decorum.  Though 
not  a  member  of  the  Roman  communion,  he  expressed  his 
desire  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  religion  professed  by  the 
majority  of  the  people  whose  guest  he  was,  and  thus  the 
President  of  the  Republic  went  officially  to  the  metropoli- 
tan Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame,  not  as  the  chosen  chief  of 
many  millions  of  Catholics,  but  as  the  polite  attendant  of 

1  The  anti-clericals  in  the  Chamber  having  blamed  M.  Faure's  presence 
at  Notre  Dame  at  the  obsequies  of  victims  of  the  fire  in  the  me  Jean- 
Groujon,  to  which  all  the  powers  of  Europe  sent  their  envoys,  the  Min- 
istry declared  that  the  ceremony  was  not  official.  €h.  des  D^put^s  ; 
Stance  du,  25  Juin,  1897. 


CH.  11  THE  INFLUENCE  OF  HOLY  RUSSIA  167 

a  foreign  potentate.  The  Tsar  plainly  intimated  to  the 
French  Government  that  only  as  a  Christian  prince  did 
he  accept  its  homage,  and  his  first  public  act  in  France 
was  to  proceed  with  pomp  to  a  solemn  service  in  the  Rus- 
sian Church ;  though  he  had  not  found  that  ceremony 
necessary  when  visiting  Great  Britain  or  Germany.  One 
of  the  most  singular  results  of  the  Franco-Russian  alli- 
ance was  that,  in  its  desire  to  please  its  august  ally,  the 
Republican  Government,  which  officially  ignored  religious 
solemnities  celebrated  by  Frenchmen  and  Frenchwomen, 
displayed  a  sudden  cult  for  the  offices  of  the  Orthodox 
rite.  On  every  birthday  or  other  festival  of  the  Imperial 
family  of  Romanoff,  the  high  officials  of  the  French  Re- 
public with  such  assiduity  trooped  to  prayers  to  the  Rus- 
sian Church  in  the  rue  Daru,  that  an  ingenuous  stranger 
might  have  thought  that  it  was  not  Christianity  which 
the  French  anti-clericals  disliked,  but  only  the  filioque 
clause  of  the  Western  creed. 

The  view  adopted  in  these  pages  of  this  peculiar  phase 
of  liberty  which  widely  prevails  under  the  Third  Republic 
is  that  of  the  majority  of  the  French  nation.  In  its  expo- 
sition no  effort  has  been  made  to  disguise  the  intolerant 
tendencies  of  the  clericals :  but  the  restraints  which  they 
would  lay  on  human  action  are  not  imposed  in  the  name 
of  liberty,  as  are  the  restrictions  enforced  by  the  zealots 
of  free-thought,  so  they  are  less  to  be  dreaded  in  the 
modern  democratic  State.  Moreover,  if  tyranny  has  to 
be  endured  by  a  citizen  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, the  domination  of  the  Church  would  seem  a  less  evil 
than  that  of  the  anti-clericals.  Both  are  highly  undesir- 
able, but  if  the  choice  of  ills  had  to  be  made,  it  might  be 
better  to  submit  to  those  who  profess  a  lofty  ideal  and  a 


158     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

severe  moral  code,  than  to  undisciplined  masters  who 
have  neither  the  one  nor  the  other.  But  the  municipal 
councillor  who  drives  the  sisters-of -mercy  from  the  hospi- 
tals and  deprives  the  village  of  the  processions  which 
used  to  delight  his  own  children  at  the  Fete  Dieu  or  the 
Assumption,  will  reply  with  magniloquent  gesture  that 
the  choice  lies  between  him,  the  son  of  Voltaire,  and  the 
successors  of  those  denounced  by  Voltaire  for  their  share 
in  the  torturing  and  slaying  of  Jean  Galas  and  of  the 
Chevalier  de  la  Barre  in  the  name  of  religion. ^  Now  next 
to  a  well-beneficed  abbe  of  the  Old  Regime  it  is  hard  to 
conceive  a  type  less  pleasing  to  Voltaire,  authoritative 
and  fastidous,  fresh  from  the  court  of  Potsdam  or  holding 
his  own  levees  of  princes  at  Ferney,  than  a  Radical  poli- 
tician of  the  Third  Republic.  Yet,  even  if  the  hatred  of 
such  an  one  for  religion  should  justify  his  title  of  Voltair- 
ian, the  circumstances  are  not  quite  the  same  as  when  the 
civil  judges  and  officials  of  the  French  Monarchy  pro- 
nounced and  carried  out  iniquitous  sentences  on  persons 
deemed  to  be  hostile  to  the  Catholic  Church. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  theme  of  the  unchanging 
inclemency  of  the  yoke  of  Rome,  or  with  a  wider  version 
which  associates  the  whole  history  of  Christianity  with 
the  oppression  of  man  by  man.  We  may  recognise  that 
in  all  lands  theological  profession,  or  even  opinion,  has 
no  necessary  relation  with   moral   conduct,  and   that  in 

1  Jean  Galas  was  a  Protestant  of  Toulouse,  broken  on  the  wheel  in 
1763  on  the  false  charge  of  having  murdered  his  son  for  becoming  a 
Catholic,  the  youth  having  in  reality  committed  suicide.  The  Chevalier 
de  la  Barre  was  a  boy  of  nineteen,  executed  at  Abbeville  in  1766,  after 
having  his  tongue  cut  out,  on  the  charge  of  having  mutilated  a  wooden 
cross  on  the  highway.  Voltaire's  pamphlets  on  these  judicial  crimes  are 
included  in  his  volumes  of  "Politique  et  Legislation." 


CH.  11  PROVINCIAL  ANTAGONISMS  169 

France  the  section  of  society  most  conspicuous  in  the 
ranks  of  Catholic  laity  is  not  pre-eminent  in  the  nation 
for  its  ethical  qualities.  But  when  we  descend  from 
general  proposition  to  particular  instance,  if  we  go  to  a 
French  provincial  centre  under  the  Third  Republic  we 
find  there  that  the  extreme  exponents  of  Christianity 
are  worthier  specimens  of  humanity  and  less  inimical  to 
liberty  than  are  the  extreme  representatives  of  free- 
thought.  In  the  society  of  a  small  provincial  town,  at 
one  end  is  the  Cure,  usually  a  peasant  by  origin,  with 
no  other  experience  of  the  world  than  that  gained  in 
the  limited  horizons  of  his  native  village,  of  the  diocesan 
seminary  and  of  his  parish.  But  though  his  intellectual 
development  be  imperfect,  he  has  compensating  qualities  : 
his  morals  are  pure  ;  his  rectitude  is  as  notable  as  his 
homely  shrewdness  and  good  sense  ;  simple-minded,  un- 
ambitious, and  self-denying,  he  often  shares  his  meagre 
pittance  with  his  poorer  neighbours.  Some,  indeed,  there 
are  whose  defects  of  character  far  outweigh  their  virtues, 
while  others  in  nobility  of  life  approach  the  level  of 
human  perfection  ;  but  the  average  parish  priest  gener- 
ally corresponds  to  the  foregoing  description.  At  the 
other  extremity  are  the  leaders  of  free-thought :  the 
doctor  who  dreams  that  the  town-council  may  perhaps 
be  his  stepping-stone  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  ;  the 
journalist  who  hopes  that  the  violence  of  his  pen  may 
take  him  to  the  provincial  capital,  or  even  to  Paris. 
Their  virtues  are  theoretical.  In  the  name  of  liberty 
they  would  emancipate  the  human  spirit  from  supersti- 
tion. The  local  application  of  the  principle  involves 
the  removal  of  the  crucifix  from  the  cemetery  or  the 
school-room,  and  the  prohibition  of  religious  processions 
in  the  streets. 


100     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

The  cafe  is  the  meeting-place  of  these  guardians  of 
liberty,  and  it  is  there  that  the  denunciation  is  concerted 
of  the  petty  official  who  has  been  seen  at  church,  or  who 
has  let  his  children  take  part  in  a  service.  Formerly  the 
charge  of  church-going  was  equivalent  to  one  of  hostility 
to  the  Republic,  though  even  when  clericalism  was  really 
its  enemy  the  population  in  some  of  the  most  Republican 
provinces  of  France  was  most  assiduous  in  religious  ob- 
servance.^ But  since  the  Pope  enjoined  an  active  adhe- 
rence to  the  existing  regime  on  the  clergy,  who,  for  the 
most  part,  are  democratic  by  instinct  as  well  as  by  origin, 
the  insinuation  that  a  man  who  attends  public  worship  is 
disloyal  to  the  Government  has  to  be  more  subtly  sug- 
gested. The  Church  is  the  negation  of  the  Revolution  ; 
the  Republic  is  the  only  legitimate  offspring  of  the  Revo- 
lution ;  therefore  adherence  to  the  Catholic  religion,  even 
in  most  perfunctory  form,  in  spite  of  nominal  loyalty  to 
the  Republic,  marks  an  unsound  citizen  who  ought  to 
receive  no  favour  from  the  Government. 

Sometimes  it  is  seriously  suggested  that  the  tyrannical 
ideas  which  are  thus  made  irregularly  to  regulate  the 
lives  of  many  French  people  shall  be  erected  into  laws. 
Such  was  the  plan  of  M.  Pochon,  deputy  for  the  Ain, 
who  proposed  that  no  Frenchman  should  be  eligible  for 
any  public  employment  unless  he  had  been  educated  in 
a  Government  school ;  ^  a  project  with  nothing  but  its 

1  At  the  elections  of  1881,  which  to  a  great  extent  were  fought  on 
Gambetta's  party  cry  of  "clericalism  the  enemy,"  among  the  departments 
in  which  not  a  single  vote  was  given  to  the  adversaries  of  the  Republic 
was  the  Haute  Savoie,  where  nearly  all  the  male  population  goes  to  mass. 

2  Ministers  of  the  Republic  have  essayed  to  carry  out  this  intolerant 
policy.  In  the  Chamber,  on  November  6,  1892,  the  question  was  raised 
of  four  youths  in  the  department  of  the  Pas  de  Calais,  who  had  been 


CH.  II  DOMESTIC  LIBERTIES  161 

tyranny  to  recommend  it,  even  in  the  interest  of  the 
party  of  irreligion,  as,  possibly  because  Frenchmen  look 
back  without  pleasure  to  their  school-days,  many  politi- 
cians hostile  to  the  Church  have  been  educated  by  the 
priests,  while  well-known  clericals  were  pupils  of  the 
Lycees.  Even  in  the  Senate,  where  respect  for  liberty 
more  generally  prevails,  a  former  Minister  of  Education,^ 
utilising  private  reports  procured  during  his  term  of 
office,  proposed  to  force  all  persons  in  Government  em- 
ployment, under  pain  of  dismissal,  to  send  their  children 
to  Government  schools.  In  many  of  the  large  towns  of 
France  the  best  secondary  education  is  imparted  in  the 
Lycees ;  in  certain  other  localities  the  schools  conducted 
by  religious  Orders  are  better;  but  in  either  case  it  is 
an  outrageous  theory  that  a  General  or  a  Judge,  by 
reason  of  his  services  to  the  State,  should  be  deprived 
of  his  domestic  liberties.  It  is  not  surprising,  when 
voices  of  authority  are  heard  enunciating  such  doctrine 
in  the  calm  air  of  the  Senate,  that  petty  local  tyrants 
should  venture  to  apply  their  version  of  it  to  the  cases 
of  the  minor  functionaries  under  their  influence. 

When  from  the  benches  of  the  Extreme  Left  in  the 
Legislature  coercive  measures,  such  as  these,  are  proposed, 
their  supporters  cite  the  similar  policy  of  the   Second 

disqualified  from  an  open  competition  for  clerkships  in  the  "Ponts  et 
Chauss^es"  on  the  ground  that  they  had  been  educated  by  the  Christian 
Brothers  instead  of  at  the  Communal  School.  The  Minister  of  Public 
Works  (M.  Viette)  recognised  the  truth  of  the  story,  but  said  that  the 
real  reason  why  the  boys  had  not  been  allowed  to  compete  was  because 
their  fathers  were  active  members  of  the  clerical  party.  The  Temps  the 
following  day,  in  the  name  of  Liberalism,  took  the  Ministry  severely  to 
task  for  its  action  in  the  matter. 

^  M.  Combes,  Senator  of  the  Charente  Inf^rieur  and  a  Doctor  of  Medi- 
cine, Minister  of  Public  Instruction  from  November,  1895,  to  April,  1896. 

VOL.  I  U 


1G2     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

Empire  to  justify  their  demands.  A  Radical  wUl  retort 
to  a  Moderate  Republican  who  advocates  perfect  liberty, 
"Do  you  think  the  Second  Empire  would  have  allowed 
its  officers  or  its  magistrates  to  send  their  children  to 
schools  where  anti-Imperial  ideas  were  taught  ? "  The 
Second  Empire  would  probably  have  acted  as  the  Radi- 
cals would  wish  the  Third  Republic  to  act,  but  with  less 
inconsistency.  The  Imperial  autocracy  had  no  abstract 
dispositions  in  favour  of  clericalism  or  of  anti-clericalism. 
When  it  was  thought  expedient  to  conciliate  the  clergy, 
a  promising  young  professor  like  Taine  was  sacrificed  at 
the  outset  of  his  career,  or  Renan  in  his  maturity  was 
treated  with  rigour;  but  when  the  pretensions  of  the 
Church  became  excessive  they  were  resisted  on  behalf 
of  the  Imperial  Government  by  Victor  Duruy,  the  most 
enlightened  Minister  of  Education  that  France  has  had 
in  the  last  half  of  the  century,  with  the  exception,  per- 
haps, of  Jules  Simon.  The  tortuous  ecclesiastical  policy 
of  the  Second  Empire  is  not  a  model  to  be  followed ;  but 
whatever  its  faults,  it  was  not  in  the  name  of  Liberty 
that  it  ordained  oppression. 

Archbishop  Ireland  once,  after  hearing  some  of  the 
grievances  of  his  brethren  of  the  French  clergy,  told 
them  that  he  recognised  the  justice  of  their  complaints, 
but  that  looking  at  past  history,  he  believed  that  if 
they  had  the  upper-hand  they  would  be  as  intolerant 
as  their  irreligious  oppressors.  That  prelate  of  the  New 
World  whose  Christian  charity  is  so  strong  that  high 
ecclesiastical  rank  has  failed  to  impair  his  love  of  liberty, 
knew  France  well,  having  been  educated  at  the  Seminary 
of  Belley.  He  seemed  to  indicate  that  the  French,  irre- 
spective of  party  or  creed,  were  generally  incapable  of 


CH.  n        THE  FORCES  OF  TOLERATION  IN  FRANCE  163 

understanding  liberty  and  toleration  in  the  highest  sense ; 
but  that  opinion  needs  some  qualification.  France  con- 
tains a  certain  number  of  citizens  who  are  patterns  of 
philosophic  tolerance  such  as  no  other  land  produces;  but 
they  are  now  too  few  even  to  form  a  group  in  the  legis- 
lative assemblies.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  survive  on  the 
benches  of  the  Senate,  and  in  the  classes  of  the  Institute 
they  are  relatively  numerous.  They  retain  the  liveliest 
illusions  on  the  perfection  of  the  British  Constitution, 
and  since  the  State  has  bought  the  portrait  by  Ingres 
of  Bertin,  the  creator  of  the  Journal  des  Debats,  the 
Louvre  ought  to  be  their  place  of  pious  pilgrimage, 
for  that  masterpiece  is  the  type  in  portraiture  of  the 
Liberal  bourgeoisie  which  might  have  governed  France 
for  a  century  instead  of  for  one  short  intermediate  epoch, 
if  1789  had  not  been  followed  by  1793,  and  the  Empire 
had  not  come  forth  from  the  Terror.  This  select  band 
is  far  from  containing  all  the  tolerance  and  love  of 
liberty  to  be  found  in  France  ;  but  the  attachment  to 
the  principles  of  liberty  and  toleration  'of  the  vast 
majority  of  the  population  is  of  such"  a  nature  that  they 
decline  to  interfere  actively  in  any  matters  not  of  per- 
sonal concern. 

In  these  pages  we  shall  see  how  important  a  factor  in 
the  life  of  the  nation  is  the  political  indifference  which 
prevails.  The  electors  who  refrain  from  recording  their 
votes  at  the  polls  are  numerous,  but  they  do  not  include 
all  the  indifferent.  If  the  industrious  mass  of  the  popu- 
lation seems  supine  in  matters  of  public  interest,  whether 
national  or  local,  except  when  they  appeal  to  the  indi- 
vidual, it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  experience  of 
a  century  is  of  a  nature  to  make  the  peaceable  citizens 


164     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

of  France  sceptical  as  to  the  utility  of  interference  in 
politics.  Moreover,  the  excessive  restrictions  laid  on 
liberty  in  France,  whether  enforced  by  Government  or 
by  irresponsible  hands,  do  not  lessen  the  happiness  of  a 
large  proportion  of  the  inhabitants.  The  hard-working 
tradesman  or  peasant,  either  in  his  laborious  days  or  in 
his  occasional  hours  of  diversion,  is,  save  in  rare  cases, 
not  often  harassed  either  by  the  rigours  of  the  admin- 
istration or  by  the  tyranny  of  politicians  who  exercise 
undue  influence  under  the  Parliamentary  System. 

Thus  as  the  old  Liberal  party  is  unhappily  ineffective, 
and  the  toiling  tranquil  population  is  indifferent,  two 
intolerant  factions  are  exclusively  conspicuous  to  the 
superficial  view.  There  is  the  party  of  reaction,  of 
which  the  most  durable  and  the  best  organised  element 
is  the  clerical  section :  and  there  is  the  Jacobin  party. 
It  is  likely  enough  that  the  former,  if  ever  it  became 
predominant,  would,  as  the  discerning  American  prelate 
said,  lay  grievous  restraints  on  liberty :  but  as  its  efforts 
in  that  direction  since  the  reign  of  Charles  X.  had  no 
signal  success  when  powerful  lay  influence  was  exerted 
on  its  behalf,  either  under  the  Second  Empire  or  during 
the  Presidency  of  Marshal  MacMahon,  there  is  no  fear 
of  it  constituting  a  danger  to  a  people  long  habituated 
to  freedom  from  priestly  domination.  Indeed  the  Church 
and  the  centralised  administration,  both  of  which  operate 
in  France  by  means  of  the  machinery  devised  by  Napo- 
leon, tend  much  less  to  interfere  with  personal  liberty 
than  does  the  action  of  that  section  of  the  population, 
which,  hostile  to  those  organisations,  would  in  the  name 
of  Liberty  subject  the  entire  nation  to  its  narrow  doc- 
trine.    The  Church  with  its  mystical  and  moral  author- 


CH.  n  INTOLERANCE  AND  ANARCHY  165 

ity,  and  the  administrative  system  with  its  ramified  and 
deep-rooted  stability,  are  two  of  the  chief  defences  of  a 
sober  and  industrious  people  against  anarchy,  which  is 
incompatible  with  all  liberty. 

The  extreme  politicians  who  tyrannise  in  the  provinces 
are  generally  associated  with  the  party  of  disorder  in 
Paris  and  in  the  populous  centres,  which  has  excessive 
weight  with  ministries  and  urges  them  to  intolerant 
policy.  Anti-clericalism  is  indeed  often  professed  by 
authoritative  opponents  of  anarchy.  That,  however,  is 
not  the  usual  tendency  of  the  sectaries,  who  terrorise 
public  servants  of  every  degree,  from  the  humble  func- 
tionary, deprived  by  them  of  his  liberty  to  regulate  the 
most  sacred  details  of  his  domestic  life,  to  the  President 
of  the  Republic,  who  for  fear  of  them  must  not  be 
seen  in  a  church.  They  are  the  descendants  of  the 
Jacobins  who  diverted  the  course  of  the  Revolution  to 
their  own  purposes.  Though  their  aims  and  doctrines 
differ  in  some  particulars,  they  have  one  point  of  re- 
semblance :  they  are  only  a  handful  of  the  population. 
M.  Taine  has  elaborately  proved  that  the  Jacobin  con- 
quest of  France,  after  1789,  was  accomplished  by  a  party 
which  did  not  include  in  its  ranks  one-twentieth  of  the 
male  adults  left  in  France. ^  So  a  century  later,  after 
a  generation  of  tranquillity,  just  as  in  the  period  suc- 
ceeding the  great  upheaval,  the  majority  of  the  French 
people  have  the  same  dread  of  anarchy  which  then  drove 
them  into  surrendering  some  of  the  liberties  recently  won 
in  order  to  escape  the  worst  form  of  oppression.  Hence 
it  is  not  impossible  that  the  curious  conception  which 

1  Bholution,  vol.  ii.  liv.  i.  c.  ii. 


166     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

the  revolutionary  minority  has  of  liberty,  coupled  with 
the  inability  of  parliamentary  government  to  check  its 
pretensions,  might  become  a  contributing  force  to  impel 
the  French  nation  to  try  a  new  experiment  in  govern- 
ment to  inaugurate  the  new  century. 


CHAPTER  III 

EQUALITY 


There  are  without  doubt  many  French  people  who 
would  willingly  see  the  principle  of  Liberty  more  liberally 
applied ;  but  this  can  hardly  be  said  of  the  second  great 
theory  of  the  Revolution.  It  is,  however,  no  reproach  to 
the  French  that  Equality  is  neither  found  nor  cultivated 
among  them,  for  the  contrary  could  only  be  the  case  if 
they  ceased  to  belong  to  the  human  family.  What  is 
open  to  criticism  is  their  official  pretension  that  their 
nation  is  endowed  with  a  quality  which  has  never  existed  in 
any  community  of  mankind ;  so,  as  at  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  they  repeat  the  legend  adopted  at  the  Rev- 
olution, the  student  is  bound  in  courtesy  to  inquire  into 
its  signification,  and  to  see  if  its  perpetuation  has  a  good 
or  an  evil  effect  in  the  land. 

The  first  stage  of  the  Revolution  did  appear  to  produce 
relative  equality  in  the  French  nation.  The  abolition  of 
privilege  and  the  equalisation  of  all  classes  before  the  tax- 
gatherer  and  the  tribunals  was  such  a  change  from  the 
oppression  which  had  provoked  the  upheaval,  that  men 
excusably  believed  that  an  era  of  equality  had  arrived. 
But  soon  human  passion  asserted  itself,  and  the  accredited 

167 


168  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

leaders  of  the  movement,  members  of  the  long  suppressed 
middle-class,  revealed  that  their  idea  of  Equality  was 
equality  with  people  who  pretended  to  be  of  superior 
rank  to  them.  As  was  said  sixty  years  later  by  Tocque- 
ville,  than  whom  none  knew  better  the  true  results  of  the 
Revolution,  the  word  Equality  in  the  lips  of  a  French 
politician  signifies,  "No  one  shall  be  in  a  better  position 
than  mine."^  This  was  the  sentiment  of  the  Jacobins  of 
the  Terror.  Camille  Desmoulins,  the  same  summer  that 
he,  a  briefless  barrister  deeply  in  debt,  had  become  a 
popular  hero  by  his  inflammatory  harangues  in  the  Palais 
Royal  on  the  eve  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  wrote  pri- 
vately of  his  improved  position  :  "  An  additional  pleasure 
is  to  put  myself  in  my  proper  place,  to  display  my  power 
to  those  who  despised  me,  to  bring  down  to  my  level 
those  whom  fortune  had  set  above  me.  My  motto  is  that 
of  all  honest  folks,  'no  superior.'" ^  For  four  years  he 
pursued  his  upward  career,  displaying  his  power  by  de- 
manding the  heads  of  his  colleagues  of  the  Convention, 
till  at  last  the  chief  accuser  of  the  Girondins  found  that 
he  had  to  recognise  a  superior  in  Robespierre,  who  sent 
him  vociferating  to  the  scaffold,  a  few  months  before  the 
autocrat  of  the  Revolution  himself  became  a  victim  to  the 
device  of  the  Republic,  as  it  was  sometimes  written  in 
1794  :  "Liberty,  Equality,  or  Death." 

The  season  in  which  the  guillotine  did  its  levelling 
work  is  looked  back  upon  with  satisfaction  by  only  a 
select  few  of  the  sons  of  the  Revolution.      The  revolu- 

^  Alexis  de  Tocqueville  et  la  democratie  liHrale:  Stude  suivie  de 
fragments  des  entretiens  de  Tocqueville  avec  N.  W.  Senior  (1848-58), 
par  E.  d'Eichthal, 

»  September  20,  1789. 


CH.  Ill  EQUALITY  AT  THE   REVOLUTION  169 

tionary  period  which  has  been  extolled  by  Frenchmen  of 
every  party,  excepting  extreme  Legitimists,  is  that  of  the 
Constituent  Assembly.  Yet  before  it  was  a  year  old  its 
acts  took  so  little  account  of  human  nature  that  they 
were  condemned  from  their  inception.  When  at  the 
famous  night  sitting  of  August  4,  1789,  the  deputies  of 
the  clergy  and  of  the  nobility  abandoned  all  their  privi- 
leges, fiscal,  feudal,  and  judicial,  the  only  criticism  which 
can  be  made  of  that  great  rectification  of  inequality  is 
that  it  was  too  sudden.  The  baneful  institutions  were 
abolished  without  anything  being  ready  to  take  their 
place,  so  anarchy  and  chaos  were  the  result.  But  the 
reform  was  both  well-conceived  and  essential,  —  qualities 
which  were  soon  lacking  in  the  acts  of  the  Assembly. 
Just  a  year  after  it  had,  in  the  Tennis  Court  at  Ver- 
sailles,^ solemnly  sworn  not  to  separate  before  giving  a 
constitution  to  France,  it  paused  on  the  way  to  suppress  all 
nobiliary  titles  and  honorific  distinctions,  declaring  that 
henceforth,  under  pain  of  fine  and  deprivation  of  civic 
rights,  no  Frenchman  should  take  or  keep  the  title  of 
duke,  prince,  marquis,  count,  baron,  or  similar  style,  or 
use  under  any  circumstances  any  appellation  but  that  of 
his  family  name. 

A  hundred  years  later,  a  generation  grown  up  under 
a  Republic,  in  which  nobility  has  no  place  and  which 
claims  to  have  inherited  the  complete  doctrine  of  1789 
and  1790,  reads  in  the  newspapers  any  morning  a  list  of 
names  of  the  frequenters  of  a  Parisian  place  of  amuse- 
ment, including  more  French  subjects  styled  count  or 
marquis  than  are  to  be  found  in  a  volume  of  St.  Simon ; 

1  "  Serment  du  Jeu  de  Paume,"  June  20,  1789.  "  Suppression  de  tous 
les  litres  et  distinctions  honoriflques,"  June  19,  1790. 


170     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

while  the  Republic  itself  allows  the  members  of  its  legis- 
lature, and  even  its  salaried  functionaries,  to  deck  them- 
selves with  whatever  title  seems  good  to  them.  Moreover, 
though  the  First  Empire  and  the  Restoration  lavishly  dis- 
regarded the  prohibition  of  the  Constituent  Assembly, 
Louis  Philippe  and  Napoleon  III.  conferred  only  a  limited 
number  of  hereditary  titles.  So,  nearly  seventy  years 
after  their  creation  practically  ceased,  the  result  of  the 
law  of  1790,  under  a  Republican  regime  which  professes 
to  respect  its  principle,  is  that  nobiliary  titles  have  multi- 
plied in  France  to  an  extent  which  would  have  scanda- 
lised a  king  of  the  Ancient  Monarchy  who  was  the  sole 
fountain  of  honour. 

No  doubt  the  abolition  of  titles  was  the  logical  corollary 
of  the  abolition  of  privilege,  and  to  the  theorists  of  1790 
it  seemed  unreasonable  that  men  should  be  distinguished 
among  their  fellows  by  meaningless  rank  which  only  kept 
alive  the  memory  of  discarded  abuses ;  but  their  conclu- 
sion proved  their  ignorance  of  human  nature.  The 
enthusiasm  of  some  of  the  revolutionaries  was  as  single- 
minded  as  it  was  chimerical ;  but  the  sentiment  expressed 
by  Camille  Desmoulins  inspired  much  of  the  action  of 
that  period,  and  had  he  kept  his  head  on  his  shoulders 
another  four  months,  till  Robespierre's  had  fallen,  he 
might  have  attained  the  exalted  rank  enjoyed  by  guillo- 
tining levellers  as  ferocious  as  himself,  —  like  Fouche, 
whose  dukedom  of  the  Empire  was  confirmed  by  Louis 
XVIII. ,  the  brother  of  his  most  illustrious  victim.  The 
impotence  of  the  revolutionaries,  after  redressing  grievous 
abuses,  to  establish  the  theory  of  the  equality  of  mankind 
is  revealed  on  every  page  of  French  history  for  a  century. 
Here  we  may  observe   some   of  its  contemporary  mani- 


CH.  Ill  THE  ABOLITION  OF   TITLES  171 

festations,  and  they  will  incidentally  allow  us  to  glance 
at  a  section  of  the  population  which  otherwise  might  be 
neglected  in  a  work  primarily  concerned  with  the  politi- 
cal forces  of  France. 

The  most  superficial  traveller  may  remark  the  curious 
fact  that  in  England,  which  is  an  unmilitary  monarchy, 
the  importunates  who  infest  the  exits  of  London  theatres 
deem  that  the  surest  way  of  winning  custom  is  by  ad- 
dressing a  person  whose  carriage  they  offer  to  call  as 
"Captain";  whereas  under  the  Republic,  in  warlike 
but  egalitarian  France,  a  member  of  that  disinherited 
class  addresses  his  possible  client  as  "  Monsieur  le  Comte," 
or,  if  unduly  avaricious,  as  "Mon  Prince."  And  just  as 
the  peaceful  attorney  rolls  home  to  Bayswater  in  a  han- 
som not  dissatisfied  with  the  recognition  of  his  martial 
air,  so  does  the  Republican  deputy  descend  the  Boulevard 
satisfied  that  his  features  bear  a  stamp  of  noble  distinc- 
tion superior  to  that  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Chamber. 
The  conclusion  is  that  an  Englishman,  though  he  depre- 
cates conscription,  and  though  his  country  has  only  once 
in  living  memory  been  at  war  with  a  civilised  power,  has 
a  human  weakness  for  fighting ;  and  that  a  Frenchman, 
however  sincere  his  official  creed  that  titular  honours 
have  no  place  in  the  democratic  State,  has  an  equally 
human  disbelief  in  the  equality  of  rank. 

Before  glancing  at  the  nobiliary  titles  used  by  an  ever- 
increasing  number  of  French  citizens  under  the  Republic, 
we  ought  to  notice  the  legalised  mode  whereby  the  Gov- 
ernment counteracts  the  principle  of  Equality  advertised 
in  its  revolutionary  device.  The  Legion  of  Honour 
founded  by  Napoleon  during  the  Consulate,  and  reorgan- 
ised at  various  epochs,  is  the  object  of  much  criticism  in 


172     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

France  ;  but  it  is  an  excellent  institution  of  its  kind.  As 
all  the  powers  of  Europe,  excepting  Switzerland,  have 
found  that  government  is  facilitated  by  the  faculty  of  dis- 
tributing among  their  subjects  honorary  distinctions, 
titular  or  decorative,  the  French  system  of  one  great 
national  Order  seems  to  offer  all  the  advantages  of 
symmetry,  which  is  a  feature  of  the  creations  of  the 
Napoleonic  settlement.  It  is  composed  of  five  classes, 
and  it  cannot  be  compared  with  any  method  existing 
in  our  country  for  rewarding  merit.  The  divisions  of 
Grand  Crosses  and  of  Grand  Officers  are  so  essentially 
military  in  composition  that  for  French  civilians  they 
are  more  exclusive  in  point  of  number  than  any  cate- 
gory of  honours  at  the  disposal  of  an  English  minister.^ 
The  intermediate  Legionaries  styled  Commanders  and 
Officers  correspond  in  some  degree  to  the  British  subjects 
who  in  expanding  crowds  receive  baronetcies,  knight- 
hoods, or  companionships.  They  include  diplomatists, 
functionaries,  men  of  letters  and  of  science,  judges,  pro- 
vincial mayors,  railway  officials,  journalists,  politicians, 
and  tradesmen,  in  addition  to  the  multitude  of  soldiers 

1  In  a  recent  roll  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  out  of  48  Grand  Crosses 
held  by  French  subjects,  7  only  were  held  by  civilians.  Of  227  Grand 
Officers  49  were  civilians ;  thus  making  a  total  of  56  civilians  invested 
with  the  two  highest  distinctions  at  the  disposal  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment. There  are  63  ribbons  of  the  Garter,  the  Thistle  and  St.  Patrick 
available  for  British  subjects  (though  they  are  not  bestowed  on  the 
ground  of  merit),  to  say  nothing  of  the  much  more  numerous  Grand 
Crosses  of  our  other  five  orders,  which  have  more  resemblance  to  the 
high  ranks  of  the  Legion  of  Honour.  Moreover,  nowadays  there  are 
always  at  least  sixty  peers  of  the  first  creation  surviving  in  our  country. 
But  although  the  high  promotions  in  the  Legion  of  Honour  are  often 
conferred  on  men  whose  position  would  in  England  give  them  a  claim  to 
peerages,  such  as  ambassadors,  colonial  governors,  and  men  eminent  in 
science,  art,  and  letters,  there  is  no  sort  of  analogy  between  the  distinctions. 


CH.  Ill  THE  LEGION  OF  HONOUR  173 

and  sailors  whose  predominance  in  all  ranks  of  the  Order 
preserves  its  originally  military  character.  All,  however, 
must  have  passed  a  period  of  probation  in  the  fifth  class 
of  Knights  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  which  is  unlimited 
in  numbers,  and  never  has  fewer  than  several  thousand 
members,  so  it  does  not  resemble  any  institution  in  our 
country. 

If  it  be  for  the  public  good  that  a  portion  of  a  human 
community  should  be  singled  out  for  distinction  by  the 
Government  under  which  it  exists,  the  broad  basis  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour  seems  to  present  certain  advan- 
tages. It  puts  a  wide-spread  premium  on  good  behaviour. 
Every  citizen  of  France,  in  town  and  country,  without 
overweening  ambition,  which  often  ruins  the  happiness 
of  well-meaning  persons,  may  regard  the  coveted  red- 
ribbon  as  a  distinction  not  beyond  his  reach.  Honours 
of  all  categories  are  in  all  countries  often  conferred  on 
the  undeserving  and  the  impudent ;  and  a  grave  objec- 
tion made  by  French  critics  to  the  miscellaneous  be- 
stowal of  the  Order  is  that  it  is  a  military  decoration, 
giving  all  its  wearers  the  right  to  be  saluted  by  soldiers, 
and  to  be  buried  with  martial  escorts,  so  that  its  occa- 
sional possession  by  blackmailing  journalists  and  other 
miscreants  brings  indirect  stigma  on  the  gallant  army 
of  France.  That  is  a  domestic  question  which  does  not 
concern  this  inquiry.  From  the  egalitarian  point  of 
view  the  disadvantage  of  the  system  is  that  it  tends 
to  make  the  French  a  nation  of  supplicants,  each  man 
soliciting  to  have  confirmed  his  superiority  over  his 
neighbour.  Twice  annually,  at  the  New  Year,  and  on 
the  day  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  supreme  festival  of 
Equality,  the  new  nominations  and  promotions  are  pub- 


174     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

lished,  being  the  result  of  many  months'  importuning  of 
ministers.  So  vast  is  the  host  of  applicants  that  two 
other  species  of  decorations  have  had  to  be  developed 
or  invented  outside  the  national  Order  ;  —  the  Academic 
Palms,  a  distinction  divided  into  two  classes,  and  dis- 
pensed by  the  departments  of  Education,  Fine  Arts,  and 
Public  Worship,  and  the  ribbon  of  "  Merite  Agricole " 
conferred  by  the  Minister  of  Agriculture.  Thus,  when- 
ever the  President  of  the  Republic  visits  ofificially  a 
provincial  town,  he  goes  with  the  definite  mission  of  dis- 
playing that  equality  is  discountenanced  by  the  State  ; 
for  it  is  his  practice  to  seize  the  occasion  to  distinguish 
local  notables  with  invidious  disparity.  The  worthiest  in 
the  eyes  of  the  Government  he  invests  with  the  Legion 
of  Honour ;  while  other  inhabitants  of  mark  he  practi- 
cally tells  that  they  are  of  inferior  condition,  not  good 
enough  for  the  red-ribbon,  and  only  entitled  to  the 
modest  violet  of  the  Academy,  or  the  rustic  green  of 
Agriculture. 

But  though  the  conferring  of  the  national  Order  and 
of  the  departmental  decorations  is  an  official  contradiction 
of  the  principle  of  equality,  yet  in  one  outward  aspect 
the  recipients  of  these  distinctions  remain  on  a  level. 
From  M.  Pasteur,  who  wore  the  Grand  Cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour,  to  the  humble  farmer  who,  for  skil- 
fully using  his  discoveries,  has  won  the  Merite  Agricole, 
none  of  the  decorated  have  any  style  or  title  affixed  to 
their  names.  Moreover  the  consorts  of  citizens  so  hon- 
oured are  of  rank  as  naked  as  the  wife  of  an  English 
archbishop.  In  our  country  it  is  said  that  if  the  corre- 
spondence of  party  whips  and  of  ministers'  secretaries 
were  made  public,  it  would  reveal  that  the  most  ardent 


CH.  HI         "QUIA  AUDISTI  VOCEM  UXORIS  TUAE"  175 

solicitations  of  titles  are  attributed  to  feminine  ambition. 
An  unpretending  manufacturer  will  write  that  since  a 
rival  tradesman  was  knighted  by  the  preceding  ministry, 
his  wife  has  vowed  that  a  baronetcy  conferred  on  her 
husband  will  alone  give  her  the  precedence  proper  to  her 
merits ;  or  a  reluctant  millionaire  will  demand  a  peerage 
on  similar  grounds,  while  declaring  that  personally  he  has 
a  clinging  love  for  the  lowly  rank  in  which  he  was  born  ; 
and  the  adviser  of  the  Crown,  though  aware  of  the  dis- 
ingenuousness  of  the  petition,  will  sometimes,  in  defiance 
of  the  most  venerable  tradition  of  antiquity,  reward  his 
unblushing  supporter  who  pleads  that  he  has  hearkened 
unto  the  voice  of  his  wife.  That,  generally  speaking,  the 
vanity  of  the  male  is  more  aggressive  in  these  matters,  is 
perhaps  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  official  France  women 
are  content  with  the  spectacular  joy  of  their  masters'  be- 
ribboned  button-holes.  Nevertheless,  the  pleasure  derived 
by  both  sexes  from  being  addressed  by  their  fellow-creat- 
ures with  titles  implying  superiority,  accounts  for  the 
curious  phenomenon  we  are  about  to  notice. 

n 

While  the  Legion  of  Honour,  though  opposed  to  the 
principle  of  equality,  is  bestowed  on  the  ground  of  desert, 
achievement,  or  service,  nobiliary  titles  are  every  year 
assumed  wholesale  by  French  subjects  without  pretence 
of  meritorious  or  useful  actions,  and  are  in  most  cases 
conferred  by  their  wearers.  Apart  from  the  theory  that, 
none  being  recognised  by  the  Republic,  all  titles  of  nobil- 
ity borne  by  French  citizens  are  irregular,  there  are  a 
certain  number  in  use  in  France  as  authentic,  as  regu- 


176     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk,  i 

larly  inherited  and  as  interesting  in  origin  as  any  in 
Europe.  But  so  multitudinous  are  tlie  persons  who 
assume  noble  affixes  according  to  their  fancy,  that  out- 
side those  of  the  chiefs  of  ducal  houses,  no  Frenchman 
but  a  learned  expert  can  judge  whether  a  title  held  by 
one  of  his  countrymen,  whatever  his  social  position,  be 
his  due  heritage  or  an  unwarranted  assumption. 

The  confusion  would  be  less  if  it  were  not  that  thou- 
sands of  the  transgressors  are  connected  with  noble 
families.  The  French  nobility  before  the  Revolution 
was  based  on  an  entirely  different  principle  from  ours. 
Nobility  in  England  was  a  political  institution  composed 
of  a  limited  number  of  persons,  each  of  whom  on  his 
death  handed  on  to  his  heir  in  line  of  primogeniture  the 
legislative  and  other  powers  he  had  exercised,  together 
with  his  titles.  In  France  it  was  a  numerous  privileged 
caste  enjoying  no  political  power,  but  transmitting  its 
fiscal  and  other  privileges  to  all  its  male  progeny,  though 
its  titles  were  usually  settled  to  descend  from  eldest  son 
to  eldest  son. 

A  striking  difference  between  the  nobility  in  the  two 
countries  was,  that  in  England  its  progeny  in  the  junior 
branches,  to  adopt  a  French  expression,  redescended  into 
the  bourgeoisie.  In  the  most  exclusive  days  of  the  British 
peerage,  before  Mr.  Pitt  began  the  democratising  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  of  which  our  generation  has  seen  some 
startling  developments,  a  great  nobleman's  grandsons, 
who  in  the  eyes  of  the  heralds  of  the  Continental  courts 
were  by  their  quarterings  of  unimpeachably  gentle  quality, 
were  in  their  own  country  simple  members  of  the  Third 
Estate  without  rank  ;  while  a  successful  lawyer  of  lowliest 
parentage  would,  if  elevated  to  the  peerage,  be  the  social 


CH.  Ill     ENGLISH  NOBILITY  AND   FRENCH  NOBLESSE  177 

superior  of  such  scions  of  illustrious  stock.  Thus  in 
England  the  expression  "  noble  birth "  has  always  been 
inaccurate,  as  no  one  could  be  nobly  born  in  our  country 
excepting  the  sole  posthumous  son  of  a  peer  ;  in  other 
cases  of  succession  the  ennobling  of  the  blood  taking 
place  only  on  the  cessation  of  the  breath  of  the  previous 
holder  of  the  peerage.  At  the  present  day  it  is  a  matter 
of  no  interest  to  anybody  that  all  the  sons  of  a  duke,  in- 
cluding even  the  eldest  in  his  father's  lifetime,  should  in 
legal  and  official  documents  be  described  as  untitled  com- 
moners ;  but  in  the  past  that  tradition  has  had  a  most 
important  bearing  on  our  national  history.  Without  it 
an  aristocratic  caste  would  have  been  formed,  causing  the 
division  of  English  society  into  horizontal  layers,  and 
preventing  the  development  of  the  party  system,  which 
has  been  in  the  past  the  bulwark  of  our  nation  against  the 
abuses  of  privilege,  and  a  safeguard  against  revolutions 
resembling  that  of  1789. 

In  France,  before  the  Revolution,  all  titled  persons 
were  noble,  but  only  a  portion  of  the  nobility  were  titled. 
In  some  provinces  few  of  the  privileged  nobles  had  titles ; 
and  all  over  the  land  the  marquisates,  baronies,  and  other 
similar  distinctions  were  usually  settled  strictly  according 
to  primogeniture,  the  younger  sons  transmitting  the  noble 
name  and  the  fiscal  privileges  to  their  progeny,  but  usually 
without  any  nobiliary  affix,  excepting  the  preposition  de 
known  as  the  particule.  There  were  exceptions  to  this 
rule,  and  there  were  even  then  instances  of  persons  who 
unduly  assumed  titles,  amid  the  crowd  of  noble  families 
ever  increased  by  nomination  to  various  offices  in  the 
realm,  and  also  by  purchase.  This  is,  of  course,  only  a 
very  general  view  of  a  complicated  subject  which  abounds 


178     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

in  countless  details  and  exceptions  ;  it  is  a  superficial 
sketch  which  may  help  to  pxplain  certain  social  phenom- 
ena conspicuous  in  France  more  than  a  century  after  the 
Revolution  abolished  not  only  privilege  but  also  titles. 

Napoleon,  while  he  maintained  the  first  principle  of  the 
Revolution  hostile  to  privilege,  understanding  human 
nature  and  recognising  that  men  liked  to  be  called  by 
names  which  put  them  on  a  higher  level  than  their  fellow- 
creatures,  even  though  they  did  not  invest  them  with 
privileges,  scattered  titles  broadcast,  making  his  Marshals 
and  Ministers,  Princes  and  Dukes,  and  including  in  the 
distribution  of  minor  honours  numerous  members  of  the 
old  nobility  who  rallied  to  the  Empire.  He  had  not  time 
to  see  the  hereditary  effect  of  his  creations,  but  when  the 
legitimate  kings  of  France  returned,  they  recognised 
many  of  the  Imperial  dignities  and  conferred  others ; 
some  of  them  being  attached  to  membership  of  the  new 
Chamber  of  Peers,  others  being  purely  decorative,  like  our 
baronetcies,  but  all  being  unconnected  with  privilege, 
which  was  the  basis  of  the  nobility  of  the  Old  Regime. 

The  patents  conferring  titles  under  the  Restoration 
limit  them  in  line  of  primogeniture,  but  the  old  dynasty 
did  not  remain  long  enough  on  its  recovered  throne  to 
enforce  regularity  or  to  see  its  ordinances  carried  out; 
and  since  the  abdication  of  Charles  X.  in  1830  there  has 
not  been  a  ruler  in  France  to  whom  French  subjects  of 
aristocratic  pretensions  have  paid  regard.  The  Faubourg 
St.  Germain  had  equal  scorn  for  Louis  Philippe  and  for 
Napoleon  III.,  and  the  efforts  of  the  latter  to  introduce 
regularity  in  the  bearing  of   titles  had  no  effect.^     The 

1  The  "Loi  centre  1' usurpation  des  titres"  passed  in  1868  was  not  an 
honest  attempt  to  settle  this  question,  but  rather  an  effort  of  the  Imperial 


CH.  Ill       THE  USE   OF  TITLES  IN  MODERN  FRANCE  179 

Government  of  the  Republic  having  acted  on  the  fiction 
that  under  a  regime  of  which  Equality  is  the  official  prin- 
ciple no  titles  can  exist,  the  widest  scope  has  been  given 
to  private  enterprise. 

The  system  which  the  more  plausible  of  the  assumers 
of  titles  have  followed  is  as  follows.  A  descendant  in  the 
male  line  of  a  family  noble  before  the  Revolution  is  quite 
aware  that,  being  the  younger  son  of  younger  sons,  under 
the  Old  Regime  he  would  have  borne  no  title  without  a 
new  creation.  But,  if  he  be  overscrupulous,  he  reasons, 
"  Under  the  Ancient  Monarchy  I  should  have  been  noble ; 
I  should  have  enjoyed  certain  privileges ;  and  the  only 
modern  compensation  for  their  disappearance  being  a  title 
I  have  the  right  to  use  one."  Not  one  in  twenty  of  the 
persons  so  situated  takes  the  trouble  to  argue  thus.  A 
man  adopts  a  title,  which  perhaps  his  father  used  irregu- 
larly before  him,  because  his  friends  do  likewise.  The 
offshoots  of  ducal  houses  set  an  example  in  the  democratic 
use  of  these  adornments,  and  in  some  of  them  there  are 
dozens  of  multiplying  younger  branches,  each  member  of 
which  styles  himself  "Comte,"  and  transmits  the  same 
designation  to  all  his  male  posterity  in  perpetuity.  The 
head  of  one  of  these  families,  whose  dukedom  dated  from 
the  early  days  of  Louis  XIV., 'told  me  that  his  own  kins- 
men, in  thus  styling  themselves,  defied  tradition  and 
profited  from  the  disorder  caused  by  the  Revolution.     In 

Government  to  obtain  the  favour  of  its  Legitimist  opponents  who  bore 
titles  by  giving  them  official  consecration  ;  but  the  law  remained  a  dead 
letter,  as  the  Royalists  declined  to  register  their  titles  while  continuing 
to  iise  them  at  their  own  discretion.  The  chief  opponent  of  the  measure 
in  the  Corps  L^gislatif  was  M.  6mile  Ollivier,  who  afterwards  rallied  to 
the  Empire,  and  he  argued  that  the  recognition  of  an  hereditary  nobility 
is  contrary  to  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  (S^nce  du  7  Mai,  1858). 


180  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN   FRANCE  bk.  i 

his  province,  moreover,  where  few  of  the  local  noblesse 
under  the  old  Monarchy  bore  titles,  its  authentic  repre- 
sentatives, perceiving  that  others  with  less  claim  than  they 
to  nobiliary  attributes  assumed  them,  called  themselves 
under  the  Third  Republic  counts  or  barons  for  the  first 
time  in  their  immemorial  annals.  If  the  ancient  gentry 
and  the  cadets  of  once  great  houses  are  willing  to  take 
such  liberties  with  the  usages  of  their  order,  the  scions 
of  the  Revolutionary  nobility  of  the  Empire  naturally  do 
likewise ;  while  multitudes  of  others  follow  suit  who  can 
trace  no  connection  either  with  the  courtiers  of  Versailles 
or  the  magistrates  of  the  Ancient  Regime,  with  Napoleon's 
soldiers  of  fortune  and  functionaries,  or  with  any  one  who 
has  ever  been  granted  a  title  by  a  ruler  of  France.  It  is 
obvious  that  a  man  who  has  some  renown  in  literature  or 
art,  or  even  in  industry,  could  not  suddenly  announce  to 
the  world  that  he  had  made  himself  a  marquis  or  a  baron  ; 
but,  considering  that  any  French  citizen  may  assume  a 
title  with  perfect  impunity,  and  that  its  assumption  in 
time  may  increase  his  own  consideration,  as  well  as  aug- 
ment the  dowries  he  may  demand  for  his  sons  when  he 
arranges  their  marriages,  it  is  surprising  that  any  obscure 
people  of  independent  means  remain  in  France  who  have 
the  self-restraint  not  to  endow  themselves  with  these 
ornamental  advantages. 

It  is  more  surprising  that  the  Government  of  the 
Republic  has  taken  no  step  to  curb  the  irregularity 
which  it  connives  at  by  a  paradoxical  application  of  the 
doctrine  of  Equality.  The  fiction  is  that  titles  borne  by 
French  subjects  have  no  existence,  so  to  recognise  them 
even  for  the  purpose  of  limiting  their  use  would  bring 
them  into  being  and  infringe  the  principle  of  equality. 


CH.  Ill  REPUBLICAN   SANCTION  OF   TITLES  181 

The  Government  of  the  Republic  does,  however,  recog- 
nise titles.  In  the  official  lists  of  the  Legislative  Cham- 
bers a  member  is  invested  with  any  nobiliary  rank  he 
likes  to  give  himself.  There  are  also  many  of  the  diplo- 
matic servants  of  the  Republic  who  bear  titles  which 
are  formally  confirmed  by  their  Government  in  the 
documents  accrediting  them  to  foreign  courts.  More- 
over, when  the  President  visits  the  provinces  in  state 
he  is  accompanied  by  functionaries  of  the  Protocole,  the 
power  which  regulates  the  ceremonial  etiquette  of  the 
Republic,  some  of  whom  in  the  official  account  of 
the  solemnities  are  formally  described  as  noblemen. 
Therefore  the  Republic  cannot  repudiate  its  responsibil- 
ity, which  is  grave  for  a  reason  not  often  recognised. 
The  objection  to  the  unlimited  multiplication  of  titles  at 
the  will  of  the  wearers  is  not  merely  a  sentimental  regret 
that  a  large  section  of  the  nation  should  bring  ridicule 
on  dignified  or  picturesque  traditions  by  following  the 
example  of  Italy  or  Spain  or  other  countries  which, 
even  though  they  have  sovereigns  to  regulate  such  mat- 
ters, ought  not  to  be  looked  to  by  France  for  social 
guidance.  The  system  is  objectionable  on  economical  as 
well  as  on  social  grounds. 

Each  year  it  increases  a  section  of  the  community 
which  adds  nothing  to  the  resources  of  the  country, 
while  it  debases  the  national  standard  of  intelligence. 
This  will  be  shown  by  the  mention  of  a  remarkable 
fact.  In  the  very  numerous  class  claiming  nobility, 
whether  authentic  or  doubtful,  ancient  or  modern,  it 
would  be  difficult  to  cite,  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  names  of  six  men  born  in  the  latter  half  of 
it  who   are    known   to  fame   or   are    believed   to  show 


182      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

promise.^  The  fact  is  the  more  lamentable  as  attractive 
youths  of  this  class  on  leaving  school,  before  they  sink 
into  a  pitiful  existence  of  futility,  from  which  the  pro- 
fession of  arms  seems  to  be  the  only  way  of  escape,  often 
display  intelligent  qualities  which  ought  to  foretoken 
a  bright  and  honourable  future.  Mgr.  d'Hulst,  shortly 
before  his  death,  gave  me  his  opinion  on  this  point, 
on  which  he  had  exceptional  knowledge,  he  being  him- 
self the  chief  of  a  noble  Breton  family,  the  intimate 
friend  of  the  Comte  de  Paris,  a  Royalist  deputy,  and 
the  head  of  the  Catholic  Institute  of  France.  He  was 
lamenting  with  some  severity  the  position  in  the  country 
of  the  men  of  good  family  ;  and  being  asked  if  it  were 
an  exaggeration  to  say  that  there  were  not  six  of  them 
born  in  the  last  half  of  the  century  who  even  gave  prom- 
ise of  brilliant  achievement,  the  learned  prelate,  who  was 
a  pessimist,  replied  with  emphasis,  "You  will  not  find 
three."  All  the  young  men  of  distinction  belonging  to 
that  class  are  now  older  than  Napoleon  was  when  his 
career  was  ended.  M.  de  Mun  and  his  colleagues  of 
the  Academy,  M.  d'Haussonville  and  M.  de  Vogue,  as 

1  In  the  army  there  are  yovmg  officers  belonging  to  noble  families  who 
are  said  to  give  remarkable  promise,  but  in  time  of  peace  such  military 
reputation  is  unknown  to  the  public.  It  should  be  said  that  no  officer  in 
the  French  service,  until  he  has  passed  the  rank  of  Colonel,  is  permitted 
to  use  any  nobiliary  title,  authentic  or  otherwise.  But  superior  officers 
of  distinction  rarely  avail  themselves  of  the  faculty,  such  affixes  being 
regarded  in  France  as  of  less  prestige  than  high  combatant  titles.  Mar- 
shal MacMahon  was  scarcely  ever  called  Due  de  Magenta,  though  he 
won  that  title  on  the  battle-field.  General  Davout,  in  whose  favour  Napo- 
leon III.  revived  the  title  confeiTed  on  his  uncle  by  Napoleon  after  Jena, 
sometimes  called  himself  Due  d'Auerstaedt  when  a  General  of  Division 
under  the  Third  Republic,  and  there  was  every  reason  for  maintaining  on 
the  army  list  its  glorious  tradition.  On  the  other  hand,  General  de  Gal- 
liffet  let  his  more  ancient  title  of  Marquis  fall  into  disuse. 


CH.  m  DECADENCE  OF  THE  TITLED  CLASS  183 

well  as  Mgr.  d'Hulst  himself,  were  all  born  before  the 
middle  of  the  century,  in  the  last  years  of  the  Monarchy 
of  July,  and  their  successors  are  not  apparent. 

It  should  be  noted  that  each  of  these  descendants  of 
noble  houses  has  attained  his  distinction  under  the  Repub- 
lic, so  it  is  not  the  influence  of  the  regime  which  has  hin- 
dered others  of  the  same  class  from  doing  likewise.  The 
policy  of  the  Republic  in  keeping  out  of  the  public 
service  those  suspected  of  noble  lineage  is  an  excuse 
pleaded  for  the  useless  lives  of  persons  so  disqualified ; 
but  though  young  men  of  gentle  birth  or  pretensions  may, 
for  their  reactionary  opinions,  have  thus  been  prevented 
from  earning  a  pittance  in  the  huge  army  of  functionaries, 
they  have  not  been  debarred  from  paths  of  renown  in  the 
liberal  professions,  in  letters,  or  in  science,  or  indeed  in 
the  career  of  politics.  Since  the  death  in  1882  of  Gam- 
betta,  himself  an  example  of  fame  made  in  opposition,  not 
a  single  Republican  office-holder  has  made  a  parliamentary 
reputation  greater  than  that  of  M.  de  Mun.  Of  the 
scores  of  successive  ministers  several  have  adequately 
filled  the  places  they  have  held,  but  not  one  has  won  politi- 
cal fame  unattainable  by  an  active  opponent  of  ministries. 
Since  the  Republic  was  governed  by  Republicans,  the  only 
department  of  the  State  in  which  distinction  has  been 
gained  is  that  of  Foreign  Affairs,  wherein  the  employ- 
ment of  men  of  good  social  position  has  not,  for  obvious 
reasons,  been  discouraged.  It  is  not  true  that  the  Repub- 
lic has  entirely  precluded  bearers  of  noble  names  from 
illustrating  honourable  pursuits.  The  oratory  of  M.  de 
Mun  is  not  a  gift  to  be  obtained  by  taking  thought ;  but 
parliamentary  skill  and  political  prominence  are  within 
the  reach  of  the  resolute,  while  diligence  is  the  chief  and 


184  THE   REVOLUTION  AND   MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

indispensable  element  of  literary  success  such  as  is  enjoyed 
by  the  other  Academicians  whose  names  have  been  cited. 

A  republic  has  its  home  in  France  greater  than  that 
which  rests  on  the  Constitution  of  1875.  In  the  com- 
monwealth of  letters,  distinction  does  not  depend  on  the 
hazards  of  a  writer's  birth  or  on  his  political  sentiments  ; 
and  since  the  fall  of  the  First  Empire  the  literature  of 
the  century,  fabricated  by  men  of  most  diverse  origin,  has 
been  the  greatest  glory  of  the  French  nation,  irrespective 
of  change  of  regime.  The  Revolution,  far  from  being 
repressive  in  its  after  effects  on  the  talents  of  the  class 
which  it  had  deposed,  seemed  after  the  reconstruction  of 
France  to  encourage  its  sons  to  excel  in  the  paths  which 
their  fathers  had  less  often  trodden  in  the  old  days  of 
privilege.  Under  the  Monarchy  of  July,  when  the  bour- 
geoisie was  paramount,  half  the  brilliant  names  foremost 
in  every  branch  of  literature  were  claimed  to  be  of  noble 
origin.  Chateaubriand,  Lamartine,  Lamennais,  Remusat, 
Segur,  Barante,  Victor  Hugo,  Alfred  de  Musset,  Tocque- 
ville,  Alfred  de  Vigny,  Balzac,  and  Montalembert  all 
were,  or  professed  to  be,  members  of  noble  families. 
They  represent  the  whole  range  of  French  style  and 
opinion  in  history,  poetry,  drama,  romance,  theology,  and 
political  philosophy,  and  each  of  them  had  made  a  name 
before  attaining  the  age  of  forty. 

No  doubt  the  Monarchy  of  July  was  a  period  of  excep- 
tional literary  splendour  to  which  every  class  of  society 
contributed,  while  the  Third  Republic  is  by  comparison 
commonplace.  But  France  continues  to  produce  a  num- 
ber of  admirable  writers,  and  while  the  so-called  noble 
class  has  increased  enormously  in  proportion  to  the  popu- 
lation, it  is  most  rare  for  a  writer  of  the  first  rank  to  claim 


CH.  Ill        RESULT  OF  UNREGULATED  USE  OF  TITLES        185 

connection  with  it,  no  matter  what  his  opinions  or  his 
subject.  Now,  if  the  portion  of  the  community  which 
displays  this  and  many  another  outward  sign  of  decadence 
were  a  small  and  exclusive  caste,  living  and  intermarrying 
apart  from  the  world,  composed  of  fossilised  patricians 
isolated  in  the  pride  of  their  parchments,  such  as  are  some- 
times found  in  the  provinces,  its  condition  would  have  no 
national  importance.  But  the  exponents  of  sterile  aristo- 
cratic pretension  are  an  expanding  multitude,  not  suffer- 
ing from  stagnation  of  the  blood  which  has  destroyed 
many  a  genuine  aristocracy.  Even  when  they  bear  right- 
fully noble  family  names,  they  are  often  the  offspring  of 
several  generations  of  alliances  with  the  shrewd  French 
middle-class,  or  with  opulent  foreigners  of  equal  intelli- 
gence, notably  of  Jewish  or  American  origin.  Thus  the 
peril  to  society  lies  in  the  fact  that  every  year  a  great  sec- 
tion of  the  population,  increasing  by  the  operation  of  the 
laws  of  nature  and  of  human  vanity,  is  diverted  from  prof- 
itable and  praiseworthy  pursuits,  to  form  an  idle  class, 
without  tradition,  ideal,  or  prospects. 

In  the  interest  of  the  whole  community  the  Government 
of  the  Republic  ought  to  have  interfered.  Some  of  its 
partisans  avow  with  cynicism  that  as  the  wearers  of  titles, 
whatever  their  origin,  are  Reactionaries,  it  has  been  in  the 
interest  of  the  Republic  not  to  check  them  in  courses  which 
bring  ridicule  on  the  enemies  of  the  established  regime. 
This  is  the  reasoning  of  opportunism  rather  than  of 
statesmanship,  which  would  not  have  permitted  this  wan- 
ton drain  on  the  resources  and  intellect  of  France.  The 
craving  for  titular  distinction  is  a  curious  phase  of  mod- 
ern democracies,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the  presumably 
meritorious,  such  as  are  invested  with  titles  in  our  coun- 


186     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

try,  have  in  France  to  be  satisfied  with  a  ribbon,  which, 
however,  is  not  less  an  infringement  of  the  principle  of 
equality.  But  the  wearing  of  a  decoration  does  not  per- 
niciously influence  a  Frenchman  in  the  performance  of  his 
duties  to  society,  and  indeed  the  hope  of  obtaining  a 
higher  grade  may  inspire  him  to  effort :  whereas  the  self- 
assumed  or  invented  nobiliary  title  inspires  its  holder  with 
no  worthier  resolve  than  to  turn  it  indolently  to  material 
profit. 

Only  the  Government  of  the  Republic  could  have  under- 
taken the  serious  task  of  regulating  the  assumption  of 
titles,  for  it  alone  could  with  impunity  offend  the  wearers 
of  them,  they  being  an  anti-Republican  force.  If  a  mon- 
archy were  re-established,  the  sovereign,  whether  absolute 
or  constitutional,  would  have  to  take  every  precaution  to 
conciliate  all  classes  of  his  new  subjects,  and  he  would 
hasten  his  return  into  private  life  if  he  began  to  meddle 
with  the  fancies  of  his  most  devoted  adherents.  An  im- 
portant supporter  of  the  Comte  de  Paris  told  me  that  he 
knew  several  holders  of  palpably  home-made  titles,  who, 
having  offered  their  fealty  to  the  pretender  and  their 
purses  to  his  cause,  had  received  gracious  letters  from 
Sheen  or  from  Stowe,  commencing  "  Mon  cher  Comte  "  or 
"  Mon  cher  Marquis,"  and  signed  "  Philippe."  These  the 
recipients  treated  as  patents  of  nobility  not  less  authentic 
than  those  whereby  Charles  IX.  and  Henry  IV.  respec- 
tively conferred  the  dukedoms  of  Thouars  and  of  La  Tre- 
moille  on  the  ancestor  of  the  present  titulary  of  those 
ancient  fiefs. 

If  strength  or  statesmanship  had  been  found  in  the  gov- 
ernments of  the  Republic,  it  would  have  been  easy  to 
remedy  the  abuse,  as  in  France  the  State  exercises  arbi- 


CH.  Ill        STATE   SUPERVISION  OF  NOMENCLATURE  187 

trary  powers  in  regulating  the  nomenclature  of  its  citi- 
zens. A  Frenchman  is  perpetually  called  upon  to  produce 
his  "  papers,"  relating  to  the  registration  of  his  birth,  to 
verify  his  identity,  and  the  strictest  restraint  is  put  upon 
the  alteration  of  his  family  or  baptismal  names.  It  is  a 
curious  contrast  between  the  habits  of  the  two  countries 
that  while  in  England  a  man  with  unmusical  or  grotesque 
appellations  may  with  faintest  formality  exchange  them 
for  a  stately  combination  suggesting  illustrious  kinship ; 
yet  if  he  unduly  describe  himself  a  lord  he  is  suspected  of 
defrauding  tradesmen  or  of  being  an  escaped  lunatic : 
whereas  in  France  any  citizen  may  with  success  make 
himself  into  a  marquis  or  a  count ;  though  if  he  take  upon 
himself  to  alter  his  civil  names  inscribed  on  his  birth  cer- 
tificate he  is  subject  to  the  sternest  penalties.  More  than 
that,  a  French  father  is  restricted  in  the  choice  of  the 
names  he  may  give  his  child :  he  may  not  call  him  by  a 
surname,  either  for  legitimate  family  reasons,  or  because 
of  romantic  sound,  or  in  honour  of  a  favourite  author  or 
politician.  He  may  not  spur  his  infant  to  ambition  by 
naming  him  Voltaire  or  Bossuet  or  Robespierre  or  Bona- 
parte or  Gambetta  or  Zola.  If  he  wishes  to  endow  him 
with  a  perpetual  stimulus  to  valour  or  patriotism  or  virtue 
or  piety,  he  can  call  him  Achille  or  Marius  or  Aristide  or 
Xavier :  for  the  great  reconstructor  of  France  decreed 
that  no  names  could  be  accorded  to  a  French  subject  but 
those  found  in  the  calendars  of  the  saints  or  in  the  history 
of  antiquity,!  t,hus  also  precluding  fantastic  parents  from 

1  Loi  du  11  Germinal  An  XI.  (April,  1803).  Tlie  most  elaborate  for- 
malities are  required  for  any  modification  in  the  names  attributed  to  a 
French  subject  when  his  birth  was  registered.  If  he  desire  a  change  in 
consequence  of  some  error  then  committed,  the  tribunals  can  authorise 
the  alteration  after  due  proof  ;  but  any  other  change  of  nomenclature  can 


188      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

naming  their  offspring  after  savage  potentates  or  abstract 
virtues. 

No  one  but  a  barbarian  would  wish  to  abolish  titles, 
ancient  or  modern,  which  have  been  handed  on  from 
father  to  son  with  historic  continuity,  whether  they  took 
their  origin  in  the  Court  of  Versailles  or  on  the  battle- 
fields of  the  Empire,  though  the  regulation  of  their  use 
is  of  urgent  expediency.  Nothing  of  historical  interest 
in  architecture  or  in  personal  attribute  should  ever  be 
destroyed  in  a  civilised  nation  unless  its  preservation 
causes  actual  injury  to  human  beings.  At  the  Revolu- 
tion it  was  as  necessary  to  deal  with  the  wealth  of  the 
Church  as  it  was  to  take  away  the  privileges  of  the 
nobles,  both  having  conduced  to  the  misery  of  the  people ; 
but  the  mutilation  of  noble  buildings  was  as  indefensible 
as  the  burning  of  parchments.  The  official  care  taken  by 
the  Republic  of  the  Invalides  at  Paris,  of  the  Cathedral 
at  Reims,  or  of  the  Maison  Carree  at  Nines,  does  not  com- 
mit the  Government  of  France  to  the  cult  of  the  religion 
of  the  Antonines  or  of  Clovis,  or  to  the  revival  of  the 
splendours  of  Louis  XIV. ;  and  the  legal  recognition  of 
the  ducal  titles  of  Uz^s,  created  the  year  of  the  massacre 
of  St.  Bartholomew,  or  of  the  princely  title  of  Moskowa, 
conferred  on  Marshal  Ney,  would  not  make  the  Republic 
suspected  of  producing  a  Catherine  de  Medicis  or  a  Napo- 

only  be  effected  by  the  Government  after  solemn  petition.  Not  only  in 
legal  documents  but  in  official  lists  a  man's  family  name  has  to  be  inscribed 
as  it  was  borne  by  his  ancestors,  even  though  his  father  before  him  used 
the  modified  form.  Thus  on  the  roll  of  the  Institute  M.  Jules  Simon  was 
inscribed  as  "  Jules  Francois  Simon-Suisse  dit  Jules  Simon,"  and  in  the 
list  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  M.  Lockroy,  the  kinsman  of  Victor  Hugo, 
is  entered  as  "  Edouard  Simon  dit  Lockroy,  fils  de  Joseph  Simon  dit  Lock- 
roy." 


CH.  Ill  OFFICIAL  RECOGNITION  OF  NOBILITY  189 

leon.     They  are  historical  monuments  which  ought  to  be 
preserved  as  such. 

Certain  incidents  inspired  by  an  inheritor  of  the 
former  title  threw  light  on  the  attitude  of  the  Repub- 
lic to  such  relics  of  past  regimes.  The  Due  d'Uzes  was 
an  amiable  young  man  descended  paternally  from  the  line 
of  dukes  created  in  1572,  and  from  the  Veuve  Clicquot  of 
genial  commercial  tradition  by  his  mother,  who  was  the 
most  serious  enemy  the  Republic  ever  had  outside  its  own 
ranks,  as  she  gave  £120,000  to  General  Boulanger  when 
he  seemed  to  need  nothing  but  funds  to  destroy  it.  The 
Duke  in  travelling  to  the  Congo  did  what  would  have 
passed  unnoticed  in  England,  whence  every  year  men  of 
good  position  go  to  spend  their  holidays  on  adventurous 
journeys.  When  in  1893  he  died  by  fever  on  the  expedi- 
tion, officials  of  the  Republic  outdid  reactionary  journal- 
ists in  giving  importance  to  the  untimely  ending  of  an 
unknown  young  nobleman,  which  in  our  country  would 
have  been  dismissed  with  a  sympathetic  paragraph  in  the 
newspapers.  But  the  event  was  doubly  noteworthy  in 
France,  because  it  behooves  the  Government  to  encourage 
every  class  of  its  citizens  when  they  show  symptoms  of  a 
taste  for  voyaging,  the  lack  of  which  in  the  nation  checks 
the  effective  establishment  of  a  colonial  empire ;  and  the 
case  of  a  rich  and  well-born  youth  quitting  the  facile  joys 
of  the  boulevards  for  the  arduous  pleasures  of  travel  was 
phenomenal.  At  all  events  his  death  received  more  offi- 
cial notice  than  if  he  had  been  the  son  of  a  Republican 
politician.  The  Minister  himself  bore  the  news  to  the 
family,  and  at  the  funeral  at  the  ancestral  chateau  in  the 
Cevennes,  a  Republican  officer,  deputed  b)'  the  Ministry 
to  represent  it,  said  he  was  "  sent  by  the  Government  of 


190     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

the  Republic  to  express  the  unanimous  sorrow  of  the 
nation  for  the  Due  d'Uzes,  who  had  displayed  exceeding 
strength  of  character  in  foregoing  the  life  of  a  favourite 
of  fortune,  his  wealth  and  the  splendour  of  his  great 
name  having  already  realised  for  him  the  dreams  of 
human  ambition."  ^ 

In  these  words  publicly  pronounced  by  the  repre- 
sentative of  the  Government  there  was  first  the  formal 
recognition  of  an  ancient  title,  disposing  of  the  pretended 
inability  of  the  Republic  to  admit  the  existence  of  such 
an  anomaly.  There  was  then  the  splendour  and  great- 
ness attributed  to  the  name,  not  by  an  advocate  of  the 
privileges  of  the  ancient  court,  who  might  justifiably 
use  those  terms  in  a  special  sense,  but  by  the  ofiicial 
mouthpiece  of  the  Republic,  which  theoretically  refuses 
to  ascribe  greatness  to  any  contemporary  name,  except 
for  the  personal  achievement  of  its  bearer.  But  there 
was  a  still  graver  repudiation  of  the  principle  of  equal- 
ity. There  was  the  suggestion  of  the  idea  prevalent 
in  France,  expressed  sometimes  in  contemptuous,  some- 
times in  respectfully  envious  form,  to  the  ejffect  that 
there  is  a  class  of  favoured  beings  called,  in  defiance  of 
etymology  and  of  history,  the  "  aristocracy,"  which  has 
no  other  vocation  or  duty  than  the  pursuit  of  pleasure 
at  Paris  and  in  the  resorts  of  Parisians  ;  and  that  shoidd 
one  of  its  members  weary  of  a  life,  of  which  the  foremost 

1  "Le  Gouvemement  de  la  R^publique  m'a  charge  de  vous  exprimer, 
Madame  la  Duchesse,  en  son  nom  et  au  nom  de  tons  les  Fran^ais  de  coeur, 
les  regrets  unanimes  de  ses  concitoyens  de  la  mort  de  celui  qui  fut  le  Due 
Jacques  d'Uzfes.  II  fallut  au  d6funt  une  grande  force  d'2,me  pour  renoncer 
k  la  vie  des  heureux  de  ce  monde  ;  jouissance  de  la  fortune,  ^clat  d'un 
grand  nom,  tel  que  lo  r6vent  les  ambitieux  de  ce  monde."  —  Diacoui's  du 
Deleyue  du  Gouvemement  aux  obseques  du  Due  d'  Uzes :  27  Septembre,  1893. 


CH.  Ill    MODERN  PARISIAN  SOCIETY  AND  OLD   RtoiME    191 

exponents  are  often  the  prodigal  heirs  of  tradesmen,  he 
deserves  to  be  lauded  as  a  hero  of  renunciation.  That 
demoralising  idea  is  fostered  by  the  perpetual  increase 
of  titled  persons  in  France.  But  there  are  also  other 
influences,  less  special  in  character,  which  have  affected 
the  upper-classes,  —  to  use  that  conventional  expression, 
the  currency  of  the  synonyms  of  which  in  the  French 
language  is  another  contradiction  of  the  principle  of 
Equality  after  a  century  of  Revolution. 


Ill 

If  the  society  which  calls  itself  aristocratic^  had  no 
other  faults  than  an  exaggerated  distaste  for  republics 
and  for  the  principle  of  equality,  it  would  be  easy  to 
pardon  its  abstention  from  public  affairs.  If  its  con- 
spicuous members  formed  a  community  preserving  the 
tradition  of  the  Ancient  Regime  with  prejudices  softened 
by  a  perfume  of  old-world  mellowness,  one  might  com- 
mend them  for  shrinking  from  the  mire  of  politics  with- 
out reminding  them  of  the  Revolutionary  origin  of  some 
of  their  fortunes,  or  of  the  unauthenticity  of  their  titles. 
They  might  then  be  compared  to  a  sacerdotal  caste  which 
guarded  the  disestablished  temples  of  a  once  powerful 
cult,  and  preserved  with  such  fidelity  the  rites  of  a 
bygone  age  that  the  onlooker  did  not  ask  for  proofs  of 
the  priestly  succession  of  all  the  ministers,  or  for  the 
history  of  the  trappings  decking  some  of  the  altars  reared 
again. 

*  These  pages  describe  only  one  phase  of  existence  in  the  French  upper- 
classes,  and  in  many  secluded  chateaux  lives  are  led  of  dignified  and  blame- 
less simplicity  (see  vol.  ii.  p.  354). 


192     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

The  more  thoroughly  the  eighteenth  century  is  studied, 
and  the  more  closely  modern  French  society  is  observed, 
the  more  clearly  is  it  seen  that  the  failings  of  the  latter 
have  no  relation  with  the  peculiar  shortcomings  of  the 
Old  Regime.  Parisians  of  fashion  will  sometimes  bewail 
that  they  are  the  victims  of  hereditary  frivolity,  and  that 
if  they  are  incapable  of  leading  useful  lives,  it  is  because 
their  ancestors  supped  at  the  Palais  Royal  or  masqueraded 
at  Trianon.  Many  who  make  this  lament  have  in  their 
veins  little  of  the  blood  of  the  courtiers ;  but  apart  from 
the  contrary  fiction  currently  assumed,  it  is  to  be 
remarked  that  the  failings  of  French  society  to-day  all 
fall  into  categories  not  exclusively  French.  They  are 
either  those  which  have  been  practised  in  all  ages  and 
in  all  lands  by  the  idle  and  the  self-indulgent,  or  they 
are  the  special  outcome  of  the  civilisation  of  our  epoch. 

If  we  study  French  society  in  the  eighteenth  century 
from  its  dawn,  described  by  St.  Simon,  to  the  Revolu- 
tion, which  sent  Mme.  de  Genlis  on  her  wanderings, 
each  new  mode  and  each  new  exponent  of  it  can  be  fol- 
lowed month  by  month  and  year  by  year.  The  age  of 
Memoirs  is  past.  Like  the  salon,  they  survived  the 
Revolution  for  half  a  hundred  years,  but  like  it  they 
could  not  survive  the  era  of  railways  and  of  plutocracy. 
Yet  the  genius  of  the  French  to  catch  fleeting  follies, 
and  to  describe  them  in  vivid  language,  is  not  extinct. 
The  real  personages  of  to-day  are  too  insignificant  to 
have  their  names  recorded,  excepting  in  the  cheap  press, 
the  society  they  compose  is  too  uninteresting:  but  they 
afford  types  for  the  modern  penciller  to  seize ;  and  when 
we  are  weary  of  the  bright  throngs  which  flitted  through 
the  chamber  of  the  Duchesse  du  Maine,  or  were  fSted  by 


cu.  HI         THE  DIVERSIONS   OF  THE   OLD  E^GEME  193 

the  Prince  de  Conti,  we  can  turn  to  the  sprightly  page 
of  Gyp,  and  see  what  right  the  idlers  of  the  present  hour 
have  to  call  themselves  the  successors  of  the  Old  Regime. 
The  vivacious  authoress  who  has  adopted  that  name 
belongs  to  the  class  which  she  portrays,  and  she  some- 
times lays  herself  open  to  the  charge  of  malice  and  of 
caricature.  But  the  cruel  truth  of  photography  is  the 
chief  offence  of  that  censorious  literature,  in  which  she 
has  some  talented  rivals  of  the  other  sex.  Indeed  its 
subjects  are  hardly  appropriate  for  the  higher  forms  of 
art.  A  sketch  by  such  a  censor  of  the  boulevards  may 
be  compared  to  an  instantaneous  photograph  of  one  of 
those  strangely  packed  coach-loads  of  fashionable  Paris- 
ians, sometimes  seen  in  the  Champs  Elys^es  on  the  way 
to  the  race-course  at  Auteuil,  boisterously  heralding  to 
passers-by  that  the  imagination  of  the  successors  of  the 
wittiest  and  most  brilliant  society  of  the  past  can  invent 
no  happier  employment  for  their  wealth  and  leisure  than 
a  parody  of  an  English  pastime. 

We  turn  from  this  spectacle,  worthy  only  of  the 
itinerant  camera,  to  the  galleries  of  the  Louvre,  where 
the  sumptuous  canvas  of  Van  Loo  displays  the  grace  and 
refinement  of  French  diversion  in  the  past.  The  stately 
picture  entitled  Une  halte  de  chasse  represents  also  men 
and  women  on  out-door  pleasure  bent;  but  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  though  there  was  an  interchange  of 
modes  between  the  two  nations,  French  wit  and  opulence 
did  not  parade  inept  imitations  of  British  sport ;  and  the 
gallant  company  reposing  after  the  morning's  chase 
would  have  disdained  to  be  mere  copyists  of  the  costume 
or  to  travesty  the  language  of  our  rubicund  fox-hunters 
of  the  days  of  Walpole.     The  faults  of  French  society  at 


194      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

that  epoch  were  doubtless  grievous,  and  grievously  were 
they  expiated,  but  it  invested  even  its  follies  with  a  cult- 
ured ease,  and  with  its  inimitable  stamp  richly  embla- 
zoned a  page  of  the  history  of  civilisation.  We  know 
now  that  the  light-hearted  hunting-parties  of  Marly  and 
Rambouillet  were  a  generation  later  to  end  on  the  scaffold 
or  in  exile,  but  on  their  way  thither  the  blithe  followers 
of  the  chase  compelled  the  envy  of  Europe,  and  in  the 
grace  of  their  existence  and  deportment  offered  to  art 
and  to  literature  material  which,  wrought  with  the  skill 
of  the  age,  still  adds  to  the  joy  of  the  world.  No  tragedy 
specially  awaits  the  modern  leaders  of  Parisian  society: 
for  social  divisions  have  been  invented  undreamed  of  at 
the  Revolution,  and  the  would-be  exponents  of  the 
nobility,  whose  last  corporate  act  was  to  decline  to  be 
fused  with  the  Third  Estate,  are  now  by  strange  irony 
ranked  as  "bourgeois"  by  the  new  Revolutionaries.  It 
is,  however,  a  pity  that  the  claimants  of  the  tradition  of 
the  Old  Regime  should  in  their  trivial  domain  of  pleasure- 
seeking  thus  justify  the  new  social  classification  by 
taking  as  their  model  the  imitative  plutocracies  of  the 
New  World. 

But  the  superiority  of  French  society  of  the  Old 
Regime  over  its  degenerate  successors  was  not  merely 
in  its  faculty  of  inventing  a  style,  and  of  impregnating 
the  century  with  its  savour.  It  did  not  content  itself 
with  creating  a  distinct  school  of  art  by  offering  to 
painters  models  of  gracious  elegance,  and  with  furnish- 
ing to  memoir- writers  the  sparkling  conversation  of  a 
polished  court,  in  which,  no  doubt,  it  was  aided  by  the 
prestige  of  the  royal  circle  from  which  it  depended.  It 
also  displayed  a  quality  which  is  attainable  by  the  upper- 


CH.  Ill  FASHION  AND   INTEIJLECT  195 

class  of  any  society,  under  any  regime:  it  took  delight 
in  the  companionship  of  the  most  brilliant  intellects  of 
the  time.  It  was  the  age  destined  to  change  the  history 
of  humanity;  but  the  women  and  the  men  who  dictated 
the  fashion  to  Europe  little  recked  that  the  social  fabric 
which  protected  them  was  being  subverted  by  the  philoso- 
phera  whom  they  cultivated.  Thus  it  was  in  salons  that 
the  new  doctrine  was  first  rehearsed,  and  in  chS,teaux  one 
day  to  be  sacked  by  its  forcible  application. 

It  was  among  the  groves  of  Grandval  that  Diderot 
discussed  with  the  Encyclopaedists  :  it  was  in  that 
famous  ch§,teau  of  M.  d'Holbach  that  he  planned  his 
most  audacious  theses.  It  was  for  Mme.  d'Epinay  that 
Rousseau  composed  Emile;  and  in  her  salon,  as  in  that 
of  the  Due  de  Luxembourg,  the  uncouth  presence  of 
Jean-Jacques,  redolent  of  his  rustic  days  of  privation  in 
Savoy,  was  the  most  welcome:  while  Voltaire,  who  had 
passed  his  life  in  an  atmosphere  royal  and  aristocratic, 
was  ending  it  at  Ferney,  where  he  held  a  court,  and 
whither  the  noblest  and  most  refined  exponents  of  French 
society  went  in  pilgrimage.  At  the  moment  when  the 
Court  of  Louis  XVI.  and  Marie  Antoinette  had  reached 
its  zenith  of  brilliancy,  Arthur  Young,  in  spite  of  an 
agriculturist's  sympathy  for  the  farmer-like  qualities  of 
his  own  sovereign,  was  not  able  to  compare  favourably 
the  influence  of  the  blameless  George  III.  with  that 
of  the  French  king.  Among  his  vaticinations  of  the 
approaching  Revolution  he  observes:  "Persons  of  the 
highest  rank  pay  all  attention  to  science  and  literature. 
I  should  pity  the  man  who  expected,  without  other 
advantages  of  a  very  different  nature,  to  be  well  received 
in  a  brilliant  circle  at  London  because  he  was  a  fellow 


IOC      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

of  the  Royal  Society;  but  a  member  of  the  Academy  of 
Sciences  at  Paris  is  sure  of  a  good  reception  every- 
where."^ 

It  may  be  retorted  that  the  society  of  the  eighteenth 
century  would  have  done  better  not  to  have  encouraged 
the  philosophers;  and  if  the  modern  upper-class  were 
overwhelmed  by  a  cataclysm,  it  might  truthfully  protest 
that  it  had  not  provoked  it  by  commerce  with  men  of 
intellect.  But  it  may  be  observed  that  the  greatest 
French  intelligences  of  our  age  have  been  anti-Revolu- 
tionary in  tendency.  Renan  was  the  very  type  most 
sought  after  in  the  salons  of  the  Old  Regime,  a  Vol- 
tairian of  aristocratic  instinct;  but  the  trifling  descend- 
ants of  pilgrims  to  Ferney,  whose  modern  clericalism 
does  not  restrain  them  from  paying  court  to  Jewish 
financiers,  disdained  to  cultivate  the  historian  of  the 
House  of  Israel.  Pasteur,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  sin- 
cere Catholic,  who  brought  more  credit  on  his  religion 
than  all  his  compatriots  of  rank :  Taine  was  the  destroyer 
of  the  legend  of  the  Revolution.  Men  so  illustrious 
require  a  society  more  attractive  than  that  which  fashion- 
able France  can  now  show:  but  there  are  brilliant  writers, 
thinkers,  and  artists  surviving  them  and  best  represent- 
ing modern  French  civilisation,  who  regret  the  separation 
of  fashion  from  intelligence  in  repudiation  of  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  Old  Regime. 

The  composition  of  the  so-called  aristocratic  society 
may  account  for  this.  The  majority,  which  has  more 
pretension  than  tradition,  imposes  its  tone.  The  grow- 
ing crowds  which  bear  titles  of  phantasy  naturally  seek 
to  consecrate  them  by  frequenting  exclusively  the  less 
1  Travels  in  France,  October,  1787. 


CH.  Ill  THE  COSMOPOLITAN  PLUTOCRACY  197 

irregular  nobility.  Again,  the  wealthy  society  of  Paris 
becomes  every  year  more  cosmopolitan,  and  children  of 
the  Republics  of  the  two  Western  continents  do  not 
colonise  Europe  primarily  for  the  sake  of  the  intellectual 
attractions  of  its  capitals.  Thus  the  increasing  number 
of  marriages  with  rich  foreigners  does  not  elevate  the 
tone  of  Parisian  society.  Dowerless  wedlock  is  not 
favoured  in  France  in  any  class  of  life;  and  as  testa- 
mentary liberty  is  restricted,  the  heads  of  once  great 
families  have  been  able  to  maintain  a  relatively  high 
position  only  by  wealthy  marriages.  But  alliances  with 
the  sole  heiresses  of  rich  French  families,  whether  noble 
or  industrial,  have  usually  had  no  demoralising  effect,  as 
they  have  been  contracted  according  to  the  ideas  of  social 
economy  cherished  in  the  nation,  and  as  the  fortunes  they 
have  united  have  not  been  so  inordinately  large  as  to 
induce  luxury  alien  to  the  tradition  of  the  parent  stock. 
It  may  be  here  remarked  that  the  lives  of  Frenchwomen 
of  the  unoccupied  upper-class  are  often  in  admirable 
contrast  to  those  of  the  men.  Their  virtues  are  of  the 
type  usually  attributed  to  the  women  of  the  bourgeoisie. 
They  are  devoted  mothers,  excellent  housewives,  and 
patterns  of  piety.  The  orderliness  of  their  existence 
and  their  virile  qualities  counteract  the  undisciplined 
or  aimless  example  of  their  husbands;  and  in  many  a 
household  in  the  decorative  section  of  society  the  woman 
is  the  superior,  morally  and  mentally,  of  her  lord.  But 
brides  from  beyond  the  Ocean  or  beyond  the  Rhine, 
whether  Aryan  or  Semitic,  are  apt  to  regard  Paris  as  a 
playground,  and  the  endowment  of  an  indigent  title  as  a 
means  of  entering  into  its  pastimes.  Thus  the  daughters 
of  native  capitalists  acquire  the  imported  idea  that  the 


198     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

chief  use  of  riches  is  to  make  a  conspicuous  figure  in 
the  world  of  triflers. 

These  observations  lead  us  to  an  important  point  in 
our  inquiry  into  the  relation  of  modern  France  with  the 
Revolution.  Its  latest  phase,  the  Third  Republic,  has 
doubtless  greatly  modified  the  condition  of  society,  as 
under  it  the  separation  between  politics  and  social 
amenity  has  been  complete;  the  failure  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  regulate  the  increasing  assumption  of  nobiliary 
titles  being  moreover  one  of  the  outward  signs  of  the 
resulting  disarray.  But  mere  negative  influences  such 
as  these  would  not  alone  have  so  transformed  the  society 
of  the  capital.  The  change  in  its  tone  is  chiefly  due, 
not  to  the  Revolution,  but  to  the  increased  influence  of 
wealth:  to  the  rise  of  the  plutocracy,  and  not  to  the  fall 
of  the  Bastille.  The  salon  survived  that  event  for  two 
generations;  and  in  the  second  quarter  of  this  century 
the  social  commerce  of  men  and  women  in  the  highest 
circles  of  Paris  was  as  brilliant,  perhaps,  as  in  the  days 
of  Mme.  Geoffrin  and  of  the  Marquise  du  Deffant. 

The  keenest  observers  from  England  at  that  period 
noted  the  superiority  of  Paris  over  London  in  this  respect. 
The  chapters  in  Coningshy  describing  the  French  capital 
are  simply  passages  from  Mr.  Disraeli's  journal  of  1842.^ 
They  refer,  therefore,  to  the  epoch  fifty  years  after 
the  Emigration,  and  during  that  chequered  half-century 
society  had  undergone  many  transformations,  culminat- 
ing in  the  foundation  of  the  anti-aristocratic  Monarchy 
of  July,  then  in  its  full  prosperity.  "Nothing  strikes 
me  more  in  this  brilliant  city,"  said  Coningsby,  "than 
the  tone  of  its  society,  so  much  higher  than  our  own. 

*  Coningsby,  bk.  v.  c.  8  :  bk.  vi.  c.  1.    Lord  Beaconsfield's  Letters,  1842. 


CH.  Ill  THE   EXTINCTION  OF  THE  SALON  199 

How  much  conversation  and  how  little  gossip  I  Here  all 
women  are  as  agreeable  as  is  the  remarkable  privilege 
in  London  of  half-a-dozen.  Men  too,  and  great  men, 
develop  their  minds.  A  great  man  in  England,  on  the 
contrary,  is  generally  the  dullest  dog  in  company." 
Lord  Beaconsfield's  sphinx-like  silence  in  society  in  his 
later  days  may  have  proceeded  from  a  desire  to  adopt  the 
usages  of  the  people  he  governed.  At  this  period,  how- 
ever, he  was  often  denounced,  by  Tories  as  well  as  by 
Whigs,  as  "un-English,"  and  to  that  quality  was 
ascribed  his  sympathy  with  things  French.  But  if  Mr. 
Disraeli  had  little  of  the  Briton  in  his  nature,  he  was 
still  more  unlike  a  Frenchman.  In  his  occidental  capac- 
ity he  was  purely  English.  In  Paris  he  sat  down  each 
morning  to  a  British  breakfast-table  with  G-alignani 
before  him,  and  an  aggressively  British  wife  by  his 
side.  No  doubt  it  was  his  cosmopolitan  genius  which 
aided  him  to  appreciate  the  merits  of  French  social  inter- 
course ;  but  there  is  unimpeachably  English  testimony  as 
to  the  vitality  of  the  aristocratic  salon  at  that  epoch. 
Henry  Bulwer,  in  his  studies  on  the  Monarchy  of  the 
Middle-Classes,  speaks  of  the  exclusion  of  the  nobility 
from  politics,  diplomacy,  and  other  careers  under  Louis 
Philippe,  which  is  complained  of  under  the  Third  Repub- 
lic, and  adds  that,  "defeated  in  the  market-place  and  the 
forum,  it  has  entrenched  itself  in  the  salon."  ^  Con- 
temporary French  memoirs,  comedies,  and  romances,  as 
well  as  the  souvenirs  of  survivors  of  the  period,  all  show 
that  neither  the  Terror  nor  the  Emigration,  neither  the 
battles  of  the  First  Empire  nor  the  middle-class  domina- 

^  The  Monarchy  of  the  Middle- Classes,  by  Henry  Lytton  Bulwer,  Esq., 
M.P.  (afterwards  Lord  DalUng),  1836. 


200      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

tion  of  "  July  "  had  divorced  the  cultured  class  from  the 
nobility. 

Thus  the  salon,  which  survived  the  Revolution  and 
the  reconstruction  of  society,  has  now  become  extinct  in 
an  epoch  of  which  the  political  and  social  upheavals  have 
been  relatively  mild.  The  reason  was  suggested  uncon- 
sciously by  Disraeli  in  a  letter  to  his  sister  describing 
his  life  in  Paris.  With  perhaps  the  contempt  of  his  race 
for  persons  with  moderate  incomes  (which  he  attributed 
to  his  hero  Lord  Monmouth),  after  reciting  a  list  of  the 
noble  persons  he  had  met  in  salons  containing  elements 
most  pleasing  and  intelligent,  he  exclaims:  "What 
names,  but  where  are  the  territories?  There  are  only 
one  hundred  men  in  France  who  have  .£10,000  a  year. 
Henry  Hope  and  Rothschild  could  buy  them  all  1 " 

The  chapters  of  the  Esprit  des  Loix  on  Equality^  have 
had  considerable  influence  on  the  social  history  of  France, 
as  in  them  Montesquieu  defended  the  principle  of  equal 
testamentary  division  of  property  among  children,  which,  - 
not  anticipating  the  Napoleonic  regime,  he  declared 
could  not  be  established  in  a  despotic  State.  In  that 
connection  he  says  that  the  complement  of  equality  is 
frugality;  and  though  his  speculations  on  the  advantages 
of  the  Republican  over  other  forms  of  government  have 
been  falsified  in  the  later  history  of  France,  his  remarks 
on  that  subject  may  be  taken  to  heart  in  our  generation, 
when  the  rule  of  wealth  is  upsetting  most  of  the  theories 
of  political  philosophers,  and  becoming  so  omnipotent  that 
the  social  composition  of  the  communities  under  its  sway 
is  more  affected  by  it  than  by  the  regime  of  the  State, 
republican  or  monarchical,  constitutional  or  arbitrary. 
*  De  V Esprit  des  Loix,  liv.  v.  c.  4,  5,  6,  etc. 


EQUALITY  AT  SCHOOLS  201 


IV 

Though  the  growing  power  of  wealth  is  the  chief 
destroyer  of  the  qualities  which  once  peculiarly  distin- 
guished Parisian  society,  and  though  it  has  introduced 
into  France  new  social  distinctions,  class-feeling  indepen- 
dently of  the  possession  of  riches  has  survived  both  the 
Revolution,  and  the  subsequent  working  of  institutions 
of  which  the  tendency  might  be  expected  to  promote 
equality.  The  educational  system  might  be  thought  to 
discourage  the  ancient  class-feeling,  and  to  counteract  its 
new  forms  in  a  plutocratic  age,  but  it  seems  to  have  the 
contrary  effect.  In  England,  the  boys  of  the  section  of 
society  known  as  the  upper  and  upper-middle  classes  are 
for  the  most  part  educated  in  a  score  or  so  of  ancient  and 
modern  foundations,  the  cheapest  of  which  is  expensive 
from  the  French  point  of  view.  In  France  such  schools 
are  unknown.  The  secondary  education  of  the  country  is 
imparted  either  in  the  Lycees  of  the  State,  or  in  Colleges 
conducted  by  religious  Orders.^  In  neither  category  are 
there  institutions  set  apart  for  the  wealthy  and  well-born 
classes.  Of  public  schools,  the  College  Stanislas  at  Paris 
is  the  one  most  favoured  by  them.  Of  the  1500  boys  200 
have  names  prefixed  with  the  particule,  signifying  that 
they  claim  to  be  of  gentle  birth.  Among  the  remain- 
ing 1300  boarders  and  day-boys  are  to  be  found  the  sons, 
not  merely  of  rich  business  men,  of  judicial  and  political 
personages  and  of  leaders  of  the  liberal  professions,  but 
also  of  small  tradesmen,  and  of  other  persons  in  relatively 

^  There  are  also  mixed  organisations  like  Stanislas,  ami  municipal  col- 
leges like  Chaptalj  both  in  Paris, 


202  THE   REVOLUTION  AND   MODERN  FRANCE  hk.  i 

humble  walks  of  life.  All  the  boys  are  treated  on  terms 
of  equality,  the  titles  of  those  who  would  seem  to  have 
right  to  bear  them  not  being  recognised.^  In  the  schools 
conducted  exclusively  by  ecclesiastics  it  is  the  same.  In 
Brittany,  where  caste  feeling  is  strong,  the  sons  of  the 
old  Breton  nobility  are  brought  up  at  the  Jesuit  College 
at  Vannes  with  the  sons  of  the  shopkeepers  and  peasant 
farmers  of  the  Morbihan. 

All  this  might  be  supposed  to  tend  to  the  oblitera- 
tion of  class-feeling.  The  hourly  contact  and  comrade- 
ship, at  an  age  when  other  considerations  appeal  to  the 
imagination  more  strongly  than  those  of  social  rank ; 
the  absolute  equality  inculcated  in  the  monotonous  dis- 
cipline ;  the  identical  mean-looking  costume  and  the 
limited  wardrobe  prescribed  for  all  the  boys  alike ;  the 
dormitory  system  and  the  absence  of  private  quarters 
admitting  of  decoration  according  to  a  school-boy's  idea 
of  luxury;  the  small  temptation  to  spend  pocket-money; 
the  promenades  taken  in  common ;  and  the  restrictions 
on  the  free  choice  of  friendships  —  in  fine  the  whole 
working  of  the  machine  is  calculated  to  turn  out  indi- 
viduals stripped  of  all  superstitions  regarding  class  in- 
equality. It  probably  is  this  very  uniformity  which 
destroys  its  own  egalitarian  object.  The  accident  of 
contact  is  not  sufficient  to  generate  lasting  sympathy. 
The  friendships  of  youth,  which,  in  spite  of  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  life,  leave  a  durable  trace  on  the  memory  and 
imagination  of  men,  need  to  have  been  begun  amid  agree- 

^  E.g.  in  the  school-lists  of  Stanislas  the  Prince  de  L6on  (a  title  held 
by  the  eldest  sons  of  the  Dues  de  Rohan  ever  since  the  creation  of  the 
dukedom  in  1652,  than  which  it  is  more  ancient)  is  entered  as  J,  de  Rohan- 
Chabot,  with  no  more  distinguishing  mark  attached  to  his  name  than  to 
that  of  the  son  of  a  notary  on  another  page  which  has  the  particule. 


CH.  Ill  SUPEEFICIAL  PHASE  OF  EQUALITY  203 

able  associations,  and  to  have  been  nurtured  by  the  sen- 
timent called  esprit  de  corps.  Now  though  our  tongue 
has  no  equivalent  for  that  French  expression,  it  connotes 
a  sentiment  less  known  in  France  than  in  England.  It 
can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist  in  French  school-life,  the 
feeling  being  so  jejune  that  a  man's  most  intimate  friends 
neither  know  nor  care  where  he  was  educated,  and  even 
the  official  biographies  of  legislators  or  academicians 
rarely  give  that  information. ^  As  for  agreeable  asso- 
ciations, a  French  collegian,  whether  he  goes  home  to  a 
sumptuous  hotel  in  the  Faubourg  St.  Germain  or  to  an 
attic  in  the  Batignolles,  whether  his  holidays  are  spent 
in  a  historic  chateau,  or  in  a  humble  farm-house,  regards 
his  Lycee  as  a  penitentiary  in  which  young  creatures  are 
immured  to  give  them  a  greater  zest  for  the  liberty  or 
licence  of  manhood.  Usually  the  only  youths  who  de- 
light in  their  school-days  are  those  precocious  students 
whose  sole  love  is  learning,  or  the  unfortunates,  rare  in 
France,  whose  harsh  childhood  has  been  spent  in  unhappy 
homes.  The  English  idea  of  sending  a  boy  to  school  to 
make  advantageous  acquaintances,  which  has  sadly  trans- 
formed the  tone  of  our  most  famous  foundations,  never 
enters  the  head  of  a  French  parent;  and  a  tradesman 
ambitious  for  his  son  does  not  imagine  that  his  future 
social  position  will  be  improved  because  he  has  for  class- 
fellows  the  heirs  to  high-sounding  titles,  or  the  children 

1  In  the  volume  of  Biographies  of  the  Deputies  returned  to  the  Cham- 
ber of  1893-98,  most  of  them  written  in  great  detail,  in  the  first  seventy 
the  schools  or  colleges  of  only  two  members  are  mentioned.  The  j)upils 
of  certain  establishments  of  superior  education,  notably  the  fecole  Xormale 
and  the  Ecole  Poly  technique,  are  not  wanting  in  esprit  de  corps;  but 
among  secondary  schools  the  only  Lyc^e  which  seems  to  inspire  that  sen- 
timent is  Condorcet,  a  day-school  in  Paris  where  there  are  no  boardere. 


204      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

of  millionaire  bankers.^  It  is  not  surprising,  therefore, 
that  universal  military  service,  which  puts  on  a  level, 
during  a  later  period  of  discipline,  those  who  have  been 
brought  up  in  elementary  schools  with  those  who  have 
had  the  advantages  of  secondary  education,  should  have 
no  effect  in  propagating  the  sentiment  of  social  equality. 
Even  among  French  officers,  who  are  drawn  from  more 
diverse  classes  of  the  community  than  those  of  the  British 
army,  there  is,  in  time  of  peace  at  all  events,  not  much 
intimate  comradeship,  in  the  same  regiment,  between 
those  who  belong  to  different  social  ranks. 

The  uniformity  of  education  of  all  classes  higher  than 
those  brought  up  in  elementary  schools  has  one  result 
bearing  the  superficial  aspect  of  equality.  While  there 
are  members  of  certain  professions  who  unmistakably 
bear  the  stamp  of  them,  it  is  often  difficult  in  France 
even  for  Frenchmen  to  recognise,  by  means  of  a  brief 
conversation  on  different  topics,  to  which  social  category 
a  man,  met  casually,  belongs.  An  agreeable  companion 
of  a  railway  journey,  who  in  admirable  language  dis- 
courses on  the  European  situation  or  on  art  and  lit- 
erature, may  turn  out  to  be  a  person  of  such  social 
surroundings  that  an  Englishman  of  corresponding  situ- 
ation would  express  himself  crudely  on  those  subjects, 
and  with  unrefined  pronunciation  or  accent.  Such  an 
experience  is  an  example  of   the  truth   that   civilisation 

^  In  one  very  honourable  way  boys  are  sometimes  sent  to  ^  Lyc^e  to 
make  influential  acquaintances.  If  a  parent  intends  his  son  for  the  "  Uni- 
vei-sity,"  that  is  to  say  the  profession  of  schoolmaster,  he  sends  him  to  a 
Lyc^e  having  a  distinguished  professorial  staff,  in  order  that  he  may  early 
attract  the  notice,  if  he  show  liromise,  of  those  who  will  later  be  his  chiefs 
and  colleagues.  But  that  motive  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  of 
social  gradation.  Girls  of  the  bourgeoisie  are,  however,  sometimes  sent 
to  fashionable  convents  for  the  sake  of  social  advantages. 


CH.  Ill  THE   CIVILISATION  OF  THE  POOR  205 

descends  lower  in  tHe  French  nation  than  in  ours.  On 
the  other  hand,  Frenchmen  of  highest  social  rank  take 
pains  to  assert  that  they  stand  lower  in  the  scale  of 
civilised  humanity  than  Englishmen  of  the  corresponding 
class,  by  insisting  that  the  more  nearly  they  approach  in 
exterior  attributes  the  British  model  the  more  nearly  do 
they  attain  perfection  —  imitation  being  a  sign  of  infe- 
riority. This  is  not  the  place  to  study  the  philosophy 
of  Anglomania,  which,  as  practised  in  the  upper  circles 
of  Paris,  is  in  my  opinion  much  to  be  deplored.  Here 
we  are  treating  of  class  distinction ;  so  all  that  need  be 
said  on  the  subject  is,  that  since  the  disappearance  of 
the  last  members  of  the  noblesse  brought  up  under  the 
Restoration  with  the  survivors  of  the  Emigration,  who 
retained  the  irretrievable  savour  of  the  Old  Regime, 
a  French  gentleman  of  fashionable  pretension  usually 
assumes  no  other  perceptible  attributes  to  distinguish 
him  from  his  less  favoured  countrymen  than  the  use 
of  English  clothes  and  English  phrases  in  the  pursuit 
of  English  pastimes. 

The  permeation  of  civilisation  to  a  level  in  France 
lower  than  in  other  communities,  is  a  gratifying  feature 
of  the  national  life.  The  country  tradesman  or  the  vil- 
lage postmaster  often  reveals  in  his  unstudied  speech 
the  urbanity  of  good  breeding,  and  cottagers  sometimes 
astonish  strangers  with  their  charm  of  manner.  No 
doubt  there  are  regions  of  France  where  the  peasants 
are  boorish,  and  their  personal  habits  unattractive  ;  but, 
on  the  whole,  their  civilisation  is  remarkable.  Their 
stores  of  household  linen,  their  excellent  cooking,  the 
propriety  of  their  attire,  though  not  universal,  exist  as 
signs  of  the  force  of  the  French  race  which  resists  the 


206     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

disorderliness  of  its  governors.  At  nightfall  the  trav- 
eller who  passes  through  remote  villages  sometimes  sees 
through  the  open  cottage  door  the  evening  meal  neatly 
laid  with  a  comfort  unknown  in  middle-class  houses  in 
other  civilised  lands.  If  he  visits  a  rural  mining  dis- 
trict, which,  from  the  language  of  the  deputies  who 
represent  it  at  Paris,  and  of  their  journals,  he  might 
believe  was  peopled  by  anarchical  savages,  he  will  not 
find  a  population  given  to  brutal  diversion  or  to  in- 
temperance ;  but  if  he  enters  the  humble  abode  of  a 
collier  or  of  an  ironworker,  he  may  perhaps  see  him, 
surrounded  by  his  family,  taking  his  dinner  served  with 
accessories  only  found  at  the  tables  of  the  rich  in  other 
countries. 

No  doubt  there  is  another  side  to  the  picture,  and  the 
daily  life  of  the  French  nation  abounds  in  scenes  as  un- 
pleasing  as  any  to  be  found  in  other  modern  communities. 
If  a  writer  sets  to  work,  like  M.  Zola,  to  prove  that 
labourers  or  miners  or  shopmen  are  sometimes  revolting 
in  their  lives,  it  is  easy  to  gather  testimony  in  support. 
But  his  inductive  method  is  as  unscientific  and  as  mis- 
leading as  that  of  less  eminent  French  writers,  who,  by 
collating  reports  of  English  tribunals,  seek  to  show  that 
the  English  are  a  nation  of  profligate  hypocrites.  Some 
of  the  work  of  M.  Zola  deserves  a  high  rank  in  the  con- 
temporary literature  of  Europe ;  but  even  though  he  has 
never  set  down  a  single  incident  without  documentary 
evidence,  he  has  none  the  less  slandered  his  countrymen 
in  his  compilations.  More  than  that,  the  humble  French 
people  whom  he  holds  up  to  horror  in  Oerminal  and  La 
Terre  are,  considering  their  arduous  disadvantages,  rela- 
tively much  more  civilised  than  the  class  to  Avhicli  M. 


CH.  in  CIVILISATION  AND  EQUALITY  207 

Zola  belongs.  For  the  points  on  which  the  civilisation  of 
the  French  provokes  most  criticism  are  those  displayed 
not  by  the  poor  alone,  but  by  the  whole  nation.  For 
example,  in  appliances  of  sanitation,  now  much  improved 
in  France,  the  dwellings  of  the  rich  were  until  late  years 
as  defective  as  those  of  the  humble.  On  another  point  of 
civilisation  there  has  been  decided  deterioration  under  the 
Third  Republic.  Public  decency  is  less  respected  in 
France  than  at  any  time  since  the  Directory  ;  but  for  the 
coarse  indecorum  of  the  music-halls,  and  the  impropriety 
of  a  portion  of  the  press,  the  peasants  and  working  people 
are  not  responsible ;  and  until  a  government  arises  strong 
enough  to  suppress  licence,  the  profession  of  which  M. 
Zola  is  a  hierophant  might,  if  it  pleased,  execute  the 
civilising  task. 

In  spite  of  the  naturalist  school,  the  traveller  in  France 
may  believe  his  own  eyes  and  ears  when  the  modest  shop- 
keeper in  the  Vendue,  or  the  villager  in  the  Berry,  gives 
him  unstudied  display  of  the  descent  of  civilisation  to  low 
social  strata  in  France.  There  are  French  theorists  who 
pretend  that  its  permeation  among  the  humble  is  the 
result  of  the  Revolution  ;  but  that  suggestion  is  both  un- 
complimentary to  the  French  race,  and  untrue.  When, 
one  may  ask,  did  the  Revolution  work  on  the  lowly  its 
civilising  mission  ?  Was  it  when  the  triooteuses  took  their 
infants  to  see  men  and  women  hurried  to  the  guillotine  ? 
Was  it  when  Napoleon  was  making  of  France  a  nation  of 
widows  and  orphans?  Under  the  Restoration  and  the 
succeeding  regimes,  no  doubt,  increased  well-being  did 
elevate  the  condition  of  the  working  classes,  but  the 
Revolution  had  only  indirectly  to  do  with  those  periods  ; 
and  if  the  Third  Republic  be  accounted  the  immediate 


208     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

inheritor  of  its  tradition,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  under  it, 
in  spite  of  the  spread  of  education  and  of  other  advan- 
tages, the  old  urbanity  and  refinement  of  the  race  have 
suffered  detriment. 

The  civilisation  of  France,  of  which  traces  are  found 
in  all  classes  of  society,  is  an  heritage  of  the  ages,  and  its 
possession  accounts  for  tlie  good  use  to  which  Frenchmen 
of  modest  origin  can  pul  the  advantages  of  a  diffused 
education.  The  Republic  has  not  been  a  regime  to  em- 
ploy, in  places  of  prominence,  the  worthiest  specimens  of 
the  nation  ;  but  Ministers  and  other  conspicuous  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Government,  though  not  endowed  with 
the  genius  which  outweighs  defects  of  training,  have 
often  filled  the  high  posts  conferred  on  them  without  the 
awkwardness  which  in  other  countries  sometimes  charac- 
terises men  who  have  risen.  Some  of  those  who  thus 
ascend  from  humble  ranks  are  political  apostles  of  Equal- 
ity, but  in  practice  they  define  it  according  to  the  con- 
ception of  it  noted  at  the  outset  of  our  inquiry.  It  is  a 
virtue  which  prevents  a  right-minded  Republican  from 
acknowledging  a  superior,  while  not  diminishing  his  right 
to  exact  due  deference  from  his  inferiors.  It  is  not  only 
the  public  servants  of  the  democracy  who  enjoy  the 
obeisance  of  their  subordinates.  A  Parisian  tradesman 
who  talks  to  his  customers,  whatever  their  rank,  with 
gracious  and  familiar  ease,  would,  on  returning  to  his 
fireside,  be  scandalised  if  his  domestics  addressed  him  in 
the  second  person,  as  a  servant  would  speak  to  his  master 
in  England,  where  equality  is  not  an  ofiicial  doctrine. 
Flaubert,  who  was  a  keen  observer  of  the  foibles  of  his 
nation,  noted  the  pleasure  which  thrilled  his  socially 
ambitious  heroine   of  the   lower   middle-class   when  she 


CH.  Ill  A  CHIVALROUS  SYMBOL  OF  EQUALITY  209 

thus  heard  herself  addressed  in  the  third  person  ;  and 
under  the  Republic  the  practice  has  not  been  interfered 
with. 

There  is  one  institution  which,  in  its  actual  form,  may 
be  said  to  have  been  handed  down  from  the  Revolution 
as  a  symbol  of  the  great  principle  that  men  should  con- 
sider themselves  equal  with  persons  of  higher  social  rank 
than  they.  The  ridiculous  aspect  of  the  modern  duel  is 
a  fertile  theme  for  French  wits,  but  little  heed  has  been 
taken  of  its  egalitarian  character,  though  that  has  hin- 
dered ridicule  from  putting  an  end  to  it.  Before  the 
Revolution  the  duel  in  France,  as  in  other  countries,  was 
a  method  of  settling  quarrels  usually  confined  to  gentle- 
men having  the  right  to  bear  arms  ;  and  a  bitter  griev- 
ance of  the  roturier  was  that  in  no  case  could  he  call  out 
a  noble.  One  of  the  fiercest  regicides  of  the  Convention 
was  Lacroix,  the  champion  of  Marat,  who  finally  went  to 
the  guillotine  in  the  same  cart  with  Camille  Desmoulins, 
whose  doctrine  of  Equality  we  know.  An  incident  of  his 
youth  ever  rankled  in  his  heart.  One  night,  before  the 
Bastille  fell,  when  coming  out  of  a  theatre  he  was  hustled 
by  a  gentleman,  who,  on  his  expostulating,  replied,  "  Who 
are  you  ?  "  The  young  provincial  recited  his  name  and 
qualities,  when  the  other  interrupted,  "  I  am  glad  to  hear 
you  are  all  that  :  I  am  the  Comte  de  Chabannes,  and  in 
a  great  hurry."  The  most  sceptical  as  to  the  benefits  of 
the  French  Revolution  cannot  deny  that  it  put  an  end 
to  this  particular  hardship  ;  for  at  the  present  day  in 
France  a  country  lawyer,  insulted  by  an  ill-bred  person, 
no  matter  what  his  rank,  has  the  right  to  be  killed  by 
him  the  next  day  without  the  slightest  penalty  being 
inflicted  on  his  slayer. 


210      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

Yet  though  the  lawyer  and  the  politician  may,  thanks 
to  the  Revolution,  demand  satisfaction  of  men  of  high- 
est social  pretension,  they  will  not  accord  it  to  persons 
of  rank  which  they  consider  humbler  than  theirs.  A 
journalist  who  has  a  casual  altercation  in  the  street  with 
a  man  whose  birth  and  fortune  are  far  superior  to  his, 
claims  the  right  to  challenge  such  a  one  to  combat ;  but 
if  he  in  turn  insulted  a  cabman  in  the  same  place,  he 
would  scorn  the  driver's  threat  to  send  his  seconds,  even 
though  he  were  the  owner  of  the  vehicle  and  so  not 
under  menial  disability ;  moreover,  though  both  were 
of  precisely  the  same  social  origin,  both  sons  of  peasants, 
the  penman  would  to  the  coachman  adopt  the  tone  with 
which  M.  de  Chabannes  turned  the  young  Lacroix  into 
a  malign  apostle  of  the  doctrine  of  equality.  Now  I 
would  not  venture  to  criticise  this  code  of  honour.  To 
cross  swords  or  exchange  bullets  with  a  politician  or 
a  journalist,  whatever  his  antecedents  or  repute,  may  be 
a  chivalrous  survival  of  the  ages  of  romance;  while  to 
meet  in  combat  a  person  of  similar  origin  who  gains  an 
honest  livelihood  by  manual  toil  may  be  undignified. 
But  while  recognising  the  delicate  distinction,  one  may 
submit  that,  as  an  application  of  the  principle  of  Equal- 
ity, it  is  conventional  and  inconsistent. 

A  senator  of  the  Third  Republic,  M.  Victor  Schoel- 
cher,  to  the  end  of  his  long  life,  which  began  under  the 
Consulate,  was,  according  to  current  anecdote,  the  type 
of  the  Republican  regarding  himself  as  the  equal  of  the 
highest  in  the  land,  but  disdainful  to  his  inferiors.  In 
his  young  days  he  applied  somewhat  inconveniently  the 
duelling  privilege  of  equality  won  by  the  Revolution, 
for,  serving  in  his  father's  shop   in  the  rue   Drouot,  he 


CH.  Ill  EQUALITY  AND  SOCIALISM  211 

used  to  challenge  customers  who  perversely  carped  at 
the  price  of  the  wares.  The  spirit  which  moved  this 
son  of  the  Revolution,  whom  Napoleon  III.  exiled  for 
his  republicanism,  is  said  sometimes  to  animate  the  whole 
body  of  Republican  senators  and  deputies,  who  are  not 
always  eager  to  extend  to  humbler  citizens  advantages 
which  they  secure  for  themselves.  In  some  respects  the 
interests  of  the  democracy  are  better  looked  after  by 
our  Imperial  Parliament  than  under  the  French  regime 
of  Equality.  The  contrast  between  the  favour  shown 
to  third-class  passengers  on  railways  in  monarchical  Eng- 
land, and  the  penalty  of  miserable  travel  inflicted  upon 
them  in  republican  France,  is  most  significant,  as  there 
the  Government  has  infinitely  greater  powers  of  pressure 
on  the  companies  than  has  ours.  But  the  poor  traveller 
in  the  land  of  equality  has  to  loiter  with  the  discomfort 
of  fifty  years  ago,  while  the  privileged  rich  enjoy  the 
luxury  of  swiftness.  One  reason  may  be  that  all  legis- 
lators have  first-class  passes  to  travel  on  all  the  railways 
of  France.^  The  theory  that  a  Member  of  Parliament 
ought  not  to  incur  expense  in  travelling  the  30  or  the 
300  miles  between  his  constituency  and  the  capital,  does 
not  seem  to  justify  his  right  to  journey  gratuitously  on 
the  30,000  miles  of  the  French  railway  system.     Hence 

1  Ten  francs  a  month  are  deducted  from  the  salary  of  each  senator  and 
deputy  to  pay  for  the  passes.  The  dependence  of  the  railways  on  the 
Government,  partly  owing  to  the  state  guarantee  of  interest,  is  such  that 
the  President  of  the  Republic  on  his  journeys  through  France  travels  at 
the  expense,  not  of  the  State  (a  practice  which  would  be  intelligible),  but 
of  the  Companies  of  the  lines  over  which  his  fancy  leads  him  ;  and  on  his 
official  tours  his  gratuitously  carried  suite  includes  forty  or  fifty  journalists 
to  record  his  words,  deeds,  and  diet.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  Queen 
of  England  travelling  on  the  railways  of  her  realm  pays  for  her  journeys 
like  any  of  her  subjects. 


212  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

less  favoured  advocates  of  equality  enviously  point  to 
the  spectacle  of  Socialist  deputies,  after  the  fatigue  of 
promoting  a  strike  in  the  foggy  North,  speeding  to  the 
Mediterranean  in  costless  ease  to  recruit  their  forces. 

The  mention  of  the  Socialists  may  suggest  the  remark 
that  nothing  has  been  said  here  of  the  one  party  in  the 
State  which  has  equality  of  condition  for  its  cardinal 
principle.  French  Socialism  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  is  a  phenomenon  of  high  importance,  which  will 
be  examined  in  later  portions  of  this  work.  But  it  has 
little  to  do  with  this  section,  treating  of  the  relations  of 
modern  France  with  the  Revolution,  for  its  theories  are 
utterly  at  variance  with  the  doctrine  of  1789.  No  doubt 
there  are  passages  of  Rousseau  which  argue  that  private 
property  cannot  exist,  and  that  its  possessors  are  only  de- 
positaries of  public  wealth.  It  is  also  true  that  the  first 
practical  result  of  the  Revolution  was  anarchy,  which  took 
the  form  of  an  insurrection  against  property.  But  the 
recognition  of  individual  proprietorship  was  one  of  the 
fundamental  bases  of  the  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of 
Man,  and  throughout  the  Revolution,  in  its  philosophic 
stage,  in  its  moments  of  greatest  horror,  as  well  as  in  its 
reactionary  and  reconstructive  phases,  the  principle  was 
respected.  Indeed,  one  reason  why  the  tenets  of  collec- 
tivism and  of  State  Socialism,  with  their  egalitarian 
tendency,  make  less  progress  in  France  than  in  England 
among  the  prosperous  classes  is  that  the  French  bour- 
geoisie is  deeply  imbued  with  the  individualism  of  the 
great  Revolution. 


CHAPTER  IV 

FRATERNITY   AND   PATRIOTISM 


From  documents  of  the  Revolutionary  period  it  would 
seem  that  the  word  Fraternity  was  not  made  an  integral 
part  of  the  device  of  the  First  Republic  until  the  year  of 
the  Terror.  Previous  to  that  phase  of  the  brotherhood 
of  mankind  the  new  reformers  sometimes  enunciated 
Liberty  and  Equality  without  their  complementary 
virtue.^  Although  the  practice  of  the  two  former  has 
been,  as  we  have  seen,  peculiar  in  France  since  the  Revo- 
lution, they  have  not  been  affected  by  it  to  the  same 
extent  as  has  been  the  principle  of  Fraternity.  Prince 
Metternich,  who  was  reaching  manhood  when  the  French 
Republic  erected  the  guillotine  as  the  symbol  of  brotherly 
love,  said  in  later  life,  after  his  varied  visits  to  Paris, 
"  Fraternity  as  it  is  practised  in  France  has  led  me  to  the 
conclusion  that  if  I  had  a  brother  I  would  call  him  my 
cousin." 

1  The  device  of  "  Liberty  and  Equality  "  seems  to  be  originally  due  to 
Montesquieu,  who  wrote  from  England  in  1729,  sixty  years  before  the 
Revolution,  A  Londres  Liberie  et  Egalite.  The  coat-of-arms  of  the 
mustnim  at  Bordeaux,  engraved  in  1783,  bears  the  motto  Liherte-Egalite, 
no  doubt  in  honour  of  Montesquieu  the  great  glory  of  the  Bordelais.  Thus 
Fraternite  alone  of  the  three  national  virtues  owes  its  legend  entirely  to 
the  Revolution, 

213 


214  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

The  sarcasm  of  the  Austrian  diplomatist,  like  every 
generalisation  applied  to  the  French,  requires  careful 
qualification.  In  their  private  and  domestic  capacity 
there  are  no  people  in  the  world  so  devoted  and  consider- 
ate to  one  another.  In  all  the  relations  of  the  human 
race  which  concern  the  home  and  the  family  they  set  an 
example  to  us.  The  love  for  a  mother  is  not  the  life-long 
religion  of  an  Englishman  as  it  is  of  a  Frenchman :  the 
affection  is  mutual,  and  the  tenderness  of  the  French  of  all 
classes  for  their  offspring  is  perhaps  so  excessive  as  to  be 
injurious  to  the  robustness  of  the  race.  But  one  result  is 
that  the  local  tribunals  have  rarely  in  France  to  try  an 
offence  corresponding  to  that  which  in  England  is  known 
as  leaving  parents  chargeable  to  the  parish.  Nor  has  the 
French  language  a  technical  equivalent  for  the  term  "  wife- 
beating,"  and  if  Frenchmen  sometimes  widow  themselves 
by  swifter  means,  they  are  as  a  rule  the  most  humane  of 
husbands. 

The  French,  again,  are  capable  of  making  sentimental 
sacrifices  for  the  benefit  of  oppressed  nationalities.  Under 
the  Monarchy  of  July  and  the  Second  Empire  they  would 
have  gladly  taken  up  arms  to  succour  Poland.  The  ills 
they  suffered  in  the  war  with  Prussia  have  had  a  too 
overwhelming  effect  to  allow  them  to  think  much  of  the 
grievances  of  other  peoples.  Nevertheless  we  have  seen 
the  Foreign  Minister  who  has  done  most  credit  to  the 
Republic  narrowly  escape  rejection  at  the  Academic  Fran- 
gaise,  because  he  was  deemed  to  have  neglected  the  plaint 
of  Greece  at  the  bidding  of  Russia.  With  the  exception 
of  the  curious  relations  between  the  Muscovite  Autocracy 
and  the  Republic,  the  attitude  of  the  French  towards 
great  powers  has  at  the  end  of  the  century  presented  no 


CH.  IV  FRATERNITY  215 

abnormal  features.  The  rivalries  of  war  and  of  peace 
have  naturally  affected  the  French  in  their  feelings 
towards  several  of  their  neighbours  in  Europe ;  and  at 
an  epoch  when  the  fraternal  effusions  of  peoples  are 
trammelled  by  their  bristling  coats  of  armour  it  is  per- 
tinent to  ask  which  is  the  nationality  whose  members 
Frenchmen  regard  with  most  asperity. 

Are  they  the  Germans  across  the  Rhine  ?  The  memory 
of  the  invader  marching  in  triumph  through  Paris,  after 
making  himself  Emperor  in  the  palace  of  Louis  XIV.  by 
right  of  victory  over  France,  galls  those  who  saw  those 
days  of  sorrow.  But  a  generation  has  arisen  to  which 
Alsace-Lorraine  is  a  sad  tradition  only  by  reason  of  the 
black  patch  on  the  school-maps  blurring  the  Eastern  fron- 
tier ;  so  in  the  fancy  of  young  France  the  Prussian  may 
perhaps  one  day  be  transformed,  as  has  been  the  Cossack 
of  the  previous  invasion.  Are  they  the  Italians,  who,  un- 
mindful of  Solferino,  have  inspired  their  Gallic  kindred 
with  resentment  which,  in  regions  whither  the  Piedmon- 
tese  troop  over  the  Alps  to  compete  with  French  wage- 
earners,  is  keener  against  these  industrial  rivals  of  Latin 
race  than  against  the  more  distant  Teutons?  Are  they 
the  English,  whom  politicians  of  the  boulevards  hold  up 
to  enmity  as  bitter  as  that  provoked  by  Italians  in  Prov- 
ence and  by  Germans  in  the  Vosges?  There  is  a  nation 
to  the  members  of  which  Frenchmen  are  more  revengeful 
than  to  Germans,  more  irascible  than  to  Italians,  more 
unjust  than  to  English.  It  is  to  the  French  that  French- 
men display  animosity  more  savage,  more  incessant,  and 
more  inequitable  than  to  people  of  any  other  race. 

An  Englishman  reads  in  a  Parisian  journal  an  insinua- 
tion against  his  nation  so  virulent  that  he  fumes  with 


216     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

indignation  at  the  currency  of  sucli  a  libel  in  the  press  of 
a  friendly  country.  He  may  calm  his  ruffled  feelings, 
for  the  next  page  is  full  of  slanders  more  outrageous, 
aimed  at  Frenchmen  who  differ  from  the  writers  on  a 
point  of  politics.  Or  he  sees  exposed  for  sale  in  Paris  a 
caricature  lampooning  the  British  race ;  but  close  by  are 
a  dozen  others  more  coarsely  defaming  French  public  men, 
not  sparing  even  the  Chief  of  the  State.  Or  a  Prince  of 
the  House  of  France,  turned  journalist,  to  win  applause 
maligns  the  English,  who  reflect  that  though  Frenchmen 
in  general  are  under  no  obligation  to  England  there  is  one 
French  family  not  in  that  case.  But  there  is  no  need  to 
be  sore  at  Prince  Henri's  forgetfulness  that  when  France 
bid  the  Orleans  begone  we  lodged  them  in  our  palaces, 
or  when  again  their  chiefs  were  exiled  we  let  them  use  our 
country  for  their  plots  against  a  government  at  peace 
with  us.  For,  to  prove  that  a  Frenchman  ungracious  to 
foreigners  is  doubly  malevolent  to  compatriots,  when  in 
the  wilds  of  Africa  he  fell  out  with  a  long-tried  travelling 
companion,  the  enterprising  prince  took  care  to  advertise 
to  Europe  the  domestic  spectacle  which  French  explorers 
were  giving  to  the  natives. 

The  peculiar  harshness  of  Frenchmen  to  Frenchmen 
in  their  political  capacity  dates  from  the  Revolution. 
Before  that  epoch  the  intolerance  of  the  Church,  the 
despotism  of  the  Crown,  and  the  oppressive  privileges  of 
the  nobility  were  merely  forms  of  evils  found  in  various 
degrees  in  all  countries.  But  while  other  nations  have 
gradually  softened  their  internal  rigours,  France  lias 
substituted  new  asperities  for  those  of  the  Old  Regime. 
This  may  be  traced  to  the  Jacobin  conquest  of  the  Revo- 
lution.     The   lawyers   and   rhetoricians   who   then   held 


CH.  IV       HARSHNESS  OF  FRENCHMEN  TO  FRENCHMEN      217 

France  in  their  blood-stained  hands  were,  some  of  them, 
in  committing  enormities,  of  perfectly  good  faith.  But 
they  had  steeped  themselves  in  the  theories  of  the  Con- 
trat  Social,  the  sophisms  of  a  Swiss  sentimentalist,  native 
of  a  community  which  never  enjoyed  unity  of  language 
or  of  race,  nor  indeed  any  qualifications  of  a  nation, 
save  those  which  are  artificial  and  fortuitous.  So  hence- 
forth their  fellow-countrymen  were  to  merit  consideration 
only  in  so  far  as  they  accepted  doctrines  applicable  to 
all  mankind.  Frenchmen  were  not  to  be  regarded  as 
the  natives  of  French  towns  and  villages,  peopling  the 
streets  and  tilling  the  fields  of  France  :  they  were  mem- 
bers of  the  human  race,  who  must,  however,  be  put  out- 
side the  pale  of  humanity  unless  they  accepted  the  social 
doctrines  crudely  believed  by  these  superficial  theorists. 
The  genesis  of  the  cruelty  of  modern  Frenchmen  to 
Frenchmen  is  curious  to  study,  as  it  belongs  to  the  sartie 
period  as  the  growth  of  the  modern  conception  of  pa- 
triotism in  France,  which  is  based  on  an  entirely  con- 
trary idea.  As  has  been  maintained  in  these  pages,  it 
was  the  discipline  of  war  which  saved  the  Revolution 
from  degenerating  into  an  orgy  of  primitive  barbarism. 
"  We  will  make  a  cemetery  of  France,"  said  the  atrocious 
Carrier,  "rather  than  not  regenerate  it  after  our  own 
fashion."  While,  however,  he  was  drowning  at  Nantes 
French  people — men,  women,  and  children  —  with  ob- 
scene tortures,  which  he  boasted  to  the  Convention  were 
inflicted  in  the  name  of  humanity,  Bonaparte  was  point- 
ing his  cannon  against  the  foreign  invader,  and  opening 
the  way  for  his  transformation  of  the  character  of  the 
Revolution.  It  was  then  that  Marie-Joseph  Ch^nier 
celebrated  in  song  the  "  Reprise  de  Toulon,"  and  a  few 


218      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

months  later  composed  the  famous  "  Chant  du  Depart," 
a  poem  interesting  to  peruse,  as  its  spirited  stanzas  are 
animated  by  the  conflicting  sentiments  which  inspired 
the  movements  of  the  Revolution  —  animosity  against 
certain  categories  of  Frenchmen,  and  opposition  to  the 
alien  foe. 

Whenever  Frenchmen  at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth 
century  are  moved  to  belabour  one  another  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  public  questions,  their  mutual  malevolence 
cannot  of  course  be  ascribed  to  the  direct  influence  of 
the  humanitarian  philosophy  which  preceded,  or  to  the 
violence  which  accompanied,  the  Revolution.  When,  for 
example,  in  the  quarrel  just  mentioned  between  French 
explorers,  the  elder  declared  that  his  high-born  compa- 
triot was  a  creature  not  superior  to  his  Abyssinian  negro, 
this  was  only  by  accident  an  exposition  of  the  doctrine 
of  Rousseau.^  So  when  a  Republican  journalist,  wishing 
to  disparage  a  minister  of  the  Republic,  charges  him  with 
once  having  followed  a  degrading  trade,  or  with  having 
committed  offences  which,  if  brought  to  justice,  would  be 
tried  with  closed  doors,  the  resemblance  in  sound  of  his 
language  to  the  scurrility  of  Marat  in  the  Ami  du  Peuple 
is  unstudied.  But  in  these  and  similar  cases  the  bitter- 
ness of  Frenchmen  for  Frenchmen  may  be  traced  to  the 
period  when  the  principle  of  Fraternity  was  officially 
enunciated,  and  when  French  people  acquired  the  habit, 
never  since  lost,  of  regarding  all  political  controversy  as 
a  desperate  struggle  between  irreconcilable  elements,  in 
which  every  lethal  weapon  was  lawful  to  use,  and  all  ties 
of  racial  kinship  were  to  be  ignored. 

We  need  only  refer  to  the  cruel  annals  of  the  Revolu- 
1  Figaro,  March  29, 1897, 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY  TRADITION  219 


tion  when  they  illustrate  a  phenomenon  of  the  present 
day ;  for  ever  since  Napoleon  ceased  to  direct  French 
ardour  against  the  foreign  foe,  the  century  has  presented 
a  series  of  blood-stained  pictures,  of  which  the  subject  is 
the  slaying  of  Frenchmen  by  Frenchmen  as  an  incident  of 
political  divergency.  M.  Emmanuel  Arago,  who  lived  to 
be  an  Ambassador  of  the  Republic  in  the  last  decade  of  the 
century,  was  the  son  of  the  great  astronomer,  and  passed 
his  childhood  at  the  Observatory  near  the  garden  of  the 
Luxembourg.  There  his  earliest  emotion  was  hearing  the 
sound  of  musketry  on  a  winter's  morning,  when  Marshal 
Ney  was  shot  by  French  soldiers,  after  leading  to  victory 
the  armies  of  France  with  sublime  courage  for  twenty- 
five  years  before  his  forlorn  heroism  at  Waterloo.  The 
aged  diplomatist  had  many  a  similar  reminiscence  of  the 
history  of  his  countrymen.  The  White  Terror  in  the 
provinces  exceeded  in  ruthless  destruction  of  French  lives 
the  executions  in  the  capital  of  warriors  of  the  Empire. 
The  government  of  the  Restoration,  under  which  French 
people  were  thus  put  to  death,  itself  came  to  a  violent  end 
in  the  Three  Glorious  Days  of  July  ;  and  a  lofty  column, 
where  the  Bastille  once  stood,  now  commemorates  how 
Frenchmen  died  wholesale  by  French  hands  on  that  felici- 
tous occasion.  When  the  nation  wearied  of  Louis  Phi- 
lippe, who  derived  the  chief  profit  from  the  Revolution  of 
1830,  it  got  rid  of  him  with  less  bloodshed  than  attended 
his  accession,  only  a  score  or  two  of  French  corpses  strew- 
ing the  streets  to  mark  the  end  of  his  dynasty.  Four 
months  later  new  proof  was  shown  that  for  the  mutual 
slaughter  of  the  people  of  France  no  regime  was  more 
favourable  than  a  Republic,  when  in  the  Days  of  June, 
1848,  five   thousand  Parisians  were  despatched   by  theii 


220      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    uk.  t 

compatriots.  After  that  the  cannon  and  the  rifles  with 
which  Louis  Napoleon  cleared  the  boulevards  of  his 
unsympathetic  fellow-citizens  in  December,  1851,  may  be 
deemed  to  have  merely  fired  the  customary  salute  where- 
with new  methods  of  government  are  announced  in 
France. 

Warfare,  even  in  its  civilised  guise,  brings  out  all  the 
evil  passions  of  human  nature,  ffomo  homini  lupus  is  as 
true  in  our  day  as  when  the  nations  of  Europe  were  semi- 
barbarous  tribes.  But  most  modern  peoples  reserve  the 
latent  savagery  within  them  for  the  chastisement  of  their 
enemies  abroad ;  whereas  the  French  show  themselves 
most  inhuman  in  fratricidal  strife,  as  though  to  substitute 
for  the  old  aphorism  a  new  version,  Gallus  G-allo  lupus. 
In  time  of  war  the  French  show  generosity  to  foreign  foes, 
but  when  Gaul  meets  Gaul,  quarter  is  neither  given  nor 
expected.  Thus  the  conflict  between  France  and  Prussia 
in  1870,  desperate  as  it  was,  was  not  stained  by  deeds  of 
truculence.  But  when  the  Germans  were  resting  after 
their  victory  on  the  heights  around  Paris,  Parisians,  to 
show  them  that  a  triumphant  invader  did  not  stand  deep- 
est in  their  hate,  made  a  bonfire  of  the  noblest  monuments 
of  their  capital  as  a  spectacle  for  the  conqueror,  and  amid 
its  fumes  massacred  venerable  and  peaceful  citizens  of 
France.  The  insurrection  of  the  Commune  was  one  of 
the  blackest  crimes  known  to  history,  and  merited  the 
sternest  retribution ;  but  its  wickedness  would  have  been 
a  more  salutary  lesson  for  future  generations  had  it  been 
punished  with  less  retaliatory  ferocity.  The  dire  occa- 
sion did  not  admit  of  judicial  calmness ;  the  infamy  of  the 
provocation  offered  by  the  insurgents  was  unparalleled ; 
nevertheless  the  soberest  narrative  of  the  suppression  of 


CH.  IV  GALLUS   GALLO  LUPUS  221 

the  rebellion  convinces  that  Frenchmen  meted  out  to 
Frenchmen  penalty  so  ruthless,  so  exuberant,  and  so  indis- 
criminate that  other  Europeans  in  modern  warfare  only 
inflict  the  like  on  barbaric  races.  The  cruelty  of  the 
Communards  to  their  fellow-citizens  was  as  dastardly  as 
that  of  the  Sepoys  to  the  British  at  Cawnpore  :  the  pun- 
ishment inflicted  by  the  Versailles  troops  on  the  Parisians 
during  the  Semaine  de  Mai  was  as  merciless  as  that  with 
which  the  English  in  India  had  to  stamp  out  the  Mutiny. 
It  might  be  urged  that  Civil  War,  being  fratricidal, 
calls  forth  inhuman  passions,  only  that  a  few  years  earlier 
the  War  of  Secession  in  America  had  shown  that  there 
are  modern  peoples  which  can  engage  in  bitter  internecine 
conflict  unaggravated  by  cruelty.  As  the  French  do  not 
thus  conduct  their  civil  conflicts,  the  events  of  May,  1871, 
ought  to  have  taught  them  to  forget,  save  as  a  warning, 
every  occasion  on  which  French  blood  has  been  shed  by 
French  hands.  That,  however,  was  not  the  tradition 
inculcated  on  the  children  born  amid  the  carnage  ex- 
hibited to  the  complacent  Germans,  who  had  not  left  so 
many  French  corpses  at  Gravelotte,  or  even  at  Sedan,  as 
fell  by  French  hands  during  the  epilogue  to  their  victo- 
ries. That  generation  grew  up  to  keep  as  the  national 
holiday  the  anniversary  of  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  which, 
if  a  triumph  for  liberty,  was  also  the  occasion  of  the 
slaughter  of  Frenchmen  by  Frenchmen.  There  were 
great  days  in  1789,  unstained  with  French  blood,  which 
the  nation  might  have  joined  to  celebrate.  The  Oath 
in  the  Tennis  Court  at  Versailles  on  the  20th  of  June, 
and  the  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man  on  the  20th  of 
August,  are  dates  as  fitting  for  popular  festival  as  the 
14th  of  July,  and  are  unsullied  with  the  death  of  a  single 


222      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

French  citizen.  But  when  the  centenary  of  the  Revolu- 
tion arrived,  it  was  clear  that  its  apostles  were  imbued 
with  its  relentless  spirit,  for  they  clamoured  for  commemo- 
ration of  more  days  on  which  French  had  slain  French. 
Pressure  was  put  upon  the  Government,  on  August  10, 
1892,  to  fete  the  Sack  of  the  Tuileries ;  and  a  few  weeks 
later,  when  the  Municipal  Council  of  Paris  celebrated  the 
centenary  of  the  formal  abolition  of  Royalty,  little  dis- 
guise was  made  that  the  rejoicings  were  in  honour  of  the 
Massacres  of  September,  1792.  A  statue  was  decreed  for 
Danton.  It  stands  between  the  site  of  the  Abbaye, 
where  the  carnage  began,  and  the  Ecole  de  Medecine, 
where  the  science  of  saving  life  is  now  taught.  The 
irony  of  the  locality  was  unnoticed  amid  the  debate 
aroused  as  to  Danton's  responsibility  for  the  Massacres 
in  the  Prisons.  It  clearly  showed  that  whatever  his  real 
share  in  them,  his  admirers  would  not  have  wished  to 
honour  him  in  bronze  had  they  not  firmly  believed  that  he 
abetted  the  butchery  of  the  thousand  French  men,  women, 
and  children  who  died  with  the  Princesse  de  Lamballe. 
Any  doubt  about  it  was  dissipated  five  years  later  when 
the  same  municipality  proposed  a  statue  for  Marat,  who 
represented  no  principles  in  the  Revolution  but  those  of 
delation  and  of  murder  of  French  people. 

A  curious  fact,  which  perhaps  proves  the  superior  hap- 
piness of  our  domestic  history  rather  than  the  superiority 
of  the  British  temperament,  is,  that  while  the  French 
perpetuate  their  internal  strife  by  celebrating  the  days  on 
which  they  shed  the  blood  of  their  compatriots,  the  his- 
torical anniversaries  which  we  have  kept  as  holidays  com- 
memorated the  saving  of  English  lives,  and  not  their 
extinction.     There  was  Royal  Oak  Day,  in  honor  of  the 


CH.  IV  THE   CULT  OF  FRATRICIDE  223 

preservation  of  the  not  very  valuable  life  of  Charles  II.  at 
Boscobel,  and  there  was  the  Fifth  of  November,  which 
solemnised  the  escape  from  Gunpowder  Plot  of  the 
Houses  of  Parliament.  With  regard  to  the  latter  fes- 
tival, however,  it  may  be  open  to  doubt  if  in  any  modern 
community  the  deliverance  from  destruction  of  its  legisla- 
tive bodies  would  now  be  deemed  a  benefit  sufficiently 
precious  to  justify  its  inscription  in  a  ferial  calendar. 

The  unbrotherly  tradition  of  the  Revolution  has  entered 
into  the  domain  of  art,  which  ought  not  needlessly  to  be 
disfigured  with  images  of  fratricide.  The  French  have 
reason  to  be  proud  of  the  gallery  of  the  Luxembourg, 
where,  in  an  age  barren  of  art  in  many  lands,  France  is 
seen  to  be  still  the  nursery  of  artistic  instinct,  an  element 
which  keeps  it,  in  spite  of  its  politicians,  in  the  front  rank 
of  nations.  Many  of  the  canvases  there  of  contempo- 
rary painters  inspire  patriotism  as  well  as  admiration  : 
Detaille's  stirring  war  scenes;  Bonnat's  glowing  effigy 
of  Cardinal  Lavigerie,  the  foremost  of  French  colonists  ; 
Jules  Breton's  peasants,  the  solid  basis  of  French  pros- 
perity. But  there  is  one  conspicuous  picture  of  which 
the  casual  visitor,  whether  native  or  alien,  can  perceive 
only  the  horror.  It  represents  an  agonised  little  boy  in 
cavalry  uniform,  unhorsed  and  stabbed  to  death  by  men 
armed  with  bayonets  and  pikes.  It  bears  no  explanatory 
inscription,  and  all  that  is  manifest  from  the  costumes  is 
that  three  stalwart  Frenchmen  are  slaughtering  a  defence- 
less BVench  child.  That,  indeed,  is  the  subject  chosen 
by  the  artist  to  hand  down  to  future  ages.  The  painting 
delineates  the  legendary  death  in  the  Vendean  War  of 
the  young  Barra,  whose  name  occurs  in  the  Chant  du 
Depart,  as  he  was  said  to  have  been  killed  by  the  Royal- 


224     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

ists  for  crying  "Vive  la  Republique."  The  legend  is  aa 
impossible  to  substantiate  as  the  more  heroic  tale  of  the 
son  of  Lucien  Casa-Bianca,  deputy  for  Corsica  in  the  Con- 
vention, who  perished  five  years  later  at  Aboukir  ;  but  if 
it  were  as  edifying  as  that  of  the  victim  of  the  explosion 
on  the  Orient^  there  would  be  no  harm  in  perpetuating  it. 
It  is,  however,  a  story,  the  currency  of  which  falsifies 
history,  for  the  presumable  purpose  of  proclaiming  that 
the  murder  of  children  by  Frenchmen  is  a  normal  inci- 
dent of  French  civil  disturbance. 

The  calumny  in  this  case  is  so  unjust  that  a  stranger 
may  be  allowed  to  challenge  it.  In  all  the  blood-stained 
record  of  the  Revolution  even  Revolutionary  authorities 
recognise  the  humane  conduct  of  the  Vendeans  in  defend- 
ing their  hearths  and  altars,  till  the  diabolical  cruelty  of 
Westermann's  Infernal  Column,  and  of  other  Republican 
forces,  provoked  reprisals.^  If,  therefore,  it  could  be  au- 
thentically proved  that  young  Barra's  death  took  place 
as  described  in  Revolutionary  poetry,  it  would  still  be  an 

1  E.g.  Mme.  de  Stael,  Considerations  sur  la  Bevolution  Franqaise, 
partie  3,  c.  xvii.  As  to  the  cruelty  of  the  Republicans  to  the  Vendeans, 
there  is  no  lack  of  Republican  evidence.  In  an  Adresse  du  comity  de  sur- 
veillance revolutionnaire  de  Fontenay-le-Peuple  a  la  Convention,  the  fol- 
lowing report  was  made  on  the  conduct  of  a  Republican  chief  in  that 
picturesque  town,  which  has  since  regained  its  pre-Revolutionary  name 
of  Fontenay-le-Comte :  "  We  see  him  every  day  catching  any  children 
he  happens  to  meet,  whether  their  parents  are  Republicans  or  Brigands. 
[It  was  thus  that  the  Republicans  called  the  Royalists  of  the  West.]  He 
seizes  them  by  one  leg  and  slices  them  in  two,  just  like  a  butcher  splitting 
up  a  sheep."  Marceau  himself,  after  helping  to  win  the  battle  of  Le 
Mans  in  1793  over  the  Vendeans,  virrote  to  his  sister,  declining  her  con- 
gratulations on  the  victory,  because,  he  said,  his  laurels  were  stained  with 
the  blood  of  his  countrymen.  The  outrages  on  the  vanquished  in  that 
battle  were  extended  pitilessly  to  women,  as  related  by  a  less  dispas-sionate 
authority,  AmM^e  de  Bejarry,  son  of  the  Vendean  leader,  in  his  Souve- 
nirs, published  at  Nantes  in  1800. 


CH.  IV  FRENCH  SELF-DETRACTION  225 

exceptional  incident  not  characteristic  of  the  Vendean 
war.  Thus,  a  picture  like  this  is  a  wanton  presentment 
of  French  cruelty  to  the  French.  The  authorities  who 
exposed  it  seem  to  have  reasoned  that  the  public  which 
came  there  consisted  largely  of  foreigners  who  had  an 
idea  that  the  atrocities  which  stain  the  domestic  history 
of  France,  from  the  Terror  to  the  Commune,  were  chiefly 
the  work  of  Revolutionaries ;  that  they  had  vaguely  heard 
of  the  young  and  the  aged  being  done  to  death  in  the 
name  of  Fraternity,  from  the  boys  and  girls  butchered  at 
BicStre  in  the  massacres  of  September,  1792,  to  Arch- 
bishop Darboy  shot  in  1871  ;  it  was  therefore  necessary 
to  advertise  the  fact  that  savagery  of  this  kind  was  not 
confined  to  one  party  in  the  State,  but  that  Crallus  Gallo 
lupus  was  a  general  proposition  applicable  to  the  whole 
race.  Otherwise,  why  should  a  noble  gallery  be  defaced 
with  the  delineation  of  a  cowardly  crime  of  Frenchmen 
based  on  a  mere  legend  ?  It  is  not  as  though  the  Revolu- 
tionary period  were  not  abundant  in  incidents  worthy  to 
inspire  the  patriotic  genius  of  artists,  as  testify  a  hundred 
famous  canvases,  such  as  "  Rouget  de  Lisle  singing  the 
Marseillaise  at  Strasbourg,"  by  Pils,  at  the  Louvre ;  the 
"Enrolment  of  the  Volunteers  of  1792,"  by  Couder,  at  Ver- 
sailles ;  to  say  nothing  of  the  series  of  military  scenes  by 
Gros,  who  was  with  Bonaparte  in  the  Army  of  Italy,  and 
by  Carle  Vernet,  who  handed  on  the  graphic  gifts  of  his 
family  to  his  son  Horace,  born  the  year  of  the  Revolution. 
Or  if  modern  Republican  art  sought  a  praiseworthy  sub- 
ject from  the  pitiful  annals  of  the  Vendean  campaign,  it 
might  depict  the  humanity  of  Marceau,  who,  when  he 
died  at  twenty-seven  a  General  of  five  years'  standing, 
unlike  his  colleagues  in  the  war  against  the  Royalists  of 


226     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

the   West,   left  a   memory   unsullied  by  cruelty  to  his 
fellow-countrymen. 

The  perpetuation  of  such  legends  in  pictorial  art  is 
only  a  symptom  of  the  unfraternal  tradition  which  the 
Revolution  rooted  in  France,  and  is  not  a  powerful 
influence  to  diffuse  it.  The  tone  of  the  press,  however, 
shows  how  wide-spread  is  the  evil  of  which  it  is  a  dis- 
seminating agency.  The  Journal  des  DSbats  and  the 
Temps,  which  both  support  the  principles  of  1789,  are 
unsurpassed  in  Europe  for  the  propriety  and  moderation 
of  their  domestic  polemics.  In  certain  other  organs 
political  articles  sometimes  appear  signed  by  pens  as 
refined  as  they  are  eloquent.  But  in  the  cheap  journals 
of  widest  circulation,  controversy  is  usually  conducted 
in  gross  language,  laden  with  base  allusions  to  oppo- 
nents. A  stranger  travelling  in  France,  who,  setting 
out  from  Paris,  buys  at  the  station  an  armful  of  morn- 
ing papers,  might  gather  from  their  perusal,  before  the 
express  train  has  made  its  first  halt,  that  the  popula- 
tion of  the  land  through  Avhich  he  is  speeding  is  wholly 
composed  of  the  ignoble  and  the  fatuous,  who  spend  their 
lives  in  rancorous  strife,  for  which  the  cure  is  known  only 
to  the  sole  saviours  of  society,  the  raging  prophets  of 
the  press  and  the  tribune.  The  traveller,  confused  with 
crude  epithets  not  found  in  the  dictionary  of  the  French 
Academy,  would  do  well  to  raise  his  eyes  from  the  enven- 
omed sheet.  Superficial  though  the  view  of  the  country 
be  from  the  window  of  a  railway  carriage,  he  will  discern 
things  belying  the  infuriate  print  before  he  reaches  the 
noble  spires  of  Chartres,  or  Orleans  with  its  memories  of 
Frenchmen  united  against  a  foe  from  the  days  of  Joan 
of  Arc  to  the  campaign  of  the  Loire  in  1870,  or  Rouen, 


cii.  IV  THE  POPULAR  PRESS  227 

where  two  sublime  minsters  tower  above  the  busy  factory- 
smoke  ;  cities  whose  associations  of  patriotic  defence,  of 
worship,  and  of  industry  take  the  imagination  away  from 
the  sordid  brawl  of  politics.  He  will  see  the  peasant  at 
work  in  the  cornfields  of  the  Beauce  or  in  the  pastures  of 
Normandy ;  or  if  it  be  a  Sunday,  he  will  catch  a  glimpse 
of  villagers  making  holiday,  blithe,  sociable,  and  sober. 
No  doubt  the  lives  of  all  these  people  at  work  or  at  play 
are  not  of  ideal  amenity,  and  human  passion  is  troublous 
in  the  provinces  as  well  as  in  the  agitated  capital.  At 
the  same  time,  they  are  for  the  most  part  indifferent  to 
political  contention,  and  at  the  end  of  the  century,  of 
which  one  of  the  boasted  triumphs  is  a  cheap  press,  it 
has  to  be  avowed  that  a  most  salutary  feature  of  national 
life  in  France  is  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  people  of 
all  classes  never  read  the  newspapers. 

It  is  not  my  intention  to  quote  any  of  the  appalling 
terms  which,  applied  by  politicians  to  one  another,  meet 
the  eye  perusing  a  journal  in  search  of  news,  or  to  give 
examples  of  the  infamous  charges  brought  against  oppo- 
nents as  a  daily  incident  of  political  controversy.  All 
that  shall  be  noted  here  is  one  lamentable  effect  of  the 
discussion  of  public  topics,  —  a  heartless  callousness  before 
personal  affliction,  or  even  mortal  bereavement.  Sick- 
ness and  death  in  France  usually  bring  forth  the  ten- 
derest  of  human  sentiments,  and  move  mere  spectators 
of  sorrow  to  express  compassion.  The  popular  political 
press  is  above  such  sentimentality,  and  it  is  not  only 
Republicans  who  are  thus  cruel  to  Monarchists,  or  Reac- 
tionaries to  Radicals  ;  so  inherent  has  cruelty  grown  in 
all  French  polemics  that  a  temporary  divergency  will 
bring  down  upon  a  former  friend  rancour  which  would 
be  excessive  to  pour  upon  a  lifelong  enemy. 


228      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

The  Libre  Parole^  primarily  an  anti-Semitic  organ, 
professes  devotion  to  the  Church,  and  is  one  of  the  few 
Parisian  journals  read  by  the  country  clergy.  Its  editor, 
M.  Drumont,  whose  writings  on  uncontroversial  subjects 
show  that  a  literary  talent  of  great  charm  has  been  sacri- 
ficed to  the  furies  of  polemical  journalism,  attacks  indis- 
criminately all  who  differ  from  him.  No  Frenchman  has 
more  claim  on  the  respect  of  Catholics  than  M.  de  Mun, 
but  he  supported  the  Government  of  the  Republic  in  cer- 
tain legislation,  provoked  by  the  outrages  of  anarchists, 
which  was  not  agreeable  to  M.  Drumont ;  and  soon  after- 
wards, being  stricken  with  illness  which  seemed  beyond 
cure,  this  is  what  the  rural  priests  read  of  their  most 
devoted  defender  from  a  Catholic  pen  :  "  God  has  heard 
our  complaints  and  has  sternly  smitten  De  Mun  ;  He  has 
said  to  him,  'I  gave  thee  eloquence,  and  thou  hast  kept 
silence  when  men  were  waiting  to  salute  thee  as  the  cham- 
pion of  justice.  Thou  shalt  never  speak  again.'  "  ^  M.  de 
Mun's  lips  happily  recovered  their  eloquence,  which  was 
crowned  with  the  highest  honour  France  has  to  confer  on 
a  Frenchman.  Just  two  years  ^  after  the  utterance  of  this 
savage  blast  of  fanaticism  he  was  elected  to  the  Academy 
in  succession  to  M.  Jules  Simon,  who  in  good  taste,  toler- 
ance and  amenity  had  illustrated  the  craft  of  journalism. 

In  the  latter  days  of  that  veteran,  who  had  fought  in 
many  a  political  field,  it  was  a  pleasure  to  turn  to  his 
genial  contributions  to  the  press.  They  demonstrated  a 
fact  which  modern  French  journalists  and  politicians 
should  take  to  heart,  that  their  flexible  native  language 
as  a  weapon  of  attack  is  more  formidable  when  manipu- 
lated with  grace  and  irony  than  when  it  is  used  as  an 
1  Libre  Parole,  6  Avril,  1896.  «  April  1,  1897. 


CH.  IV  THE  FURIES  OF  JOURNALISM  229 

instrument  of  barbarous  warfare  to  bludgeon  or  to  rip  up 
an  adversary.  To  exult  or  to  gibe  over  an  open  grave  is 
assuredly  worthier  of  a  savage  tribe  than  of  the  French 
nation,  which  in  its  domestic  life  has  an  exemplary  cult 
for  the  quiet  dead.  The  death  of  M.  Carnot,  doing  his 
duty  as  a  dignified  Chief  of  the  State,  moved  Europe  to 
tears,  yet  on  the  day  of  his  burial  M.  de  Cassagnac  hailed 
the  funeral  procession  with  sneers,  and,  with  audacity  ill- 
placed  in  a  Bonapartist,  said  that  the  Church  of  Notre 
Dame,  where  Napoleon  had  publicly  flouted  the  Vicar  of 
Christ,  was  desecrated  by  the  solemn  obsequies  sung  over 
the  remains  of  the  murdered  President.^  If  Catholics  are 
unfeeling  in  the  presence  of  death,  more  reverent  charity 
need  not  be  expected  from  professors  of  irreligion ;  so 
when  a  pious  priest  of  the  diocese  of  Paris  was  slain  by  a 
mad  woman  the  organ  of  the  Socialists  suggested  a  base 
reason  for  the  crime,  though  the  victim  was  an  example 
of  self-denial  and  ascetic  devotion,  being  a  rare  instance 
of  a  Frenchman  of  high  birth  in  the  orders  of  the  secular 
clergy.^  But  while  the  humblest  workman  in  France 
salutes  the  lifeless  body  of  a  stranger  borne  past  him  to 
the  tomb,  this  is  not  the  practice  of  politicians  before  the 
remains  of  those  whose  opinions  they  dislike,  and  even  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Republican  family  like  unseemliness  is 
displayed.  When  M.  Jules  Ferry  died,  on  the  morrow  of 
his  election  to  a  post  which  requited  his  long  exclusion 
from  office,  it  was  not  the  priests  and  nuns,  persecuted  by 
him  in  the  days  of  his  power,  who  made  signs  of  joy.     It 

1  Autorite,  1-2  Juillet,  1894. 

*  Petite  Bepubliqne,  13  Mai,  1805,  —on  the  murder  of  the  Abb6  Prince 
Paul  de  Broglie,  brother  of  the  Due  de  Broglie,  and  grandson  of  Mine,  de 
Stael. 


280     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk  i 

was  the  anti-clerical  Radicals  who  most  loudly  exulted, 
and  one  of  them,  M.  Clovis  Hugues,  a  poet  in  his  hours, 
thus  celebrated  the  event  in  crudest  prose :  "  Yesterday- 
all-powerful,  to-day  Jules  Ferry  is  but  a  corpse  which 
the  people  have  the  right  to  execrate,  and  to-morrow  the 
worms  will  eat  him  just  as  he  had  us  eaten  up  by  the 
Versailles  troops  in  1871."^ 

It  was  thus  that  the  Carmagnole  was  joyfully  danced 
and  sung  in  Paris  during  the  Massacres  of  September, 
1792.  The  song  and  the  dance  went  on  all  through  the 
Terror,  and  the  chief  effect  of  the  Revolution  on  the 
national  temperament  would  have  been  to  make  French- 
men rejoice  at  the  woes  of  Frenchmen,  had  not  the  for- 
eign invader  imposed  on  them  the  wholesome  discipline 
of  war.  Consequently  out  of  the  same  violent  movement 
which  has  left  a  heritage  of  hate  and  strife  to  the  nation 
came  the  modern  idea  of  patriotism  in  France,  which  is  a 
sentiment  both  generous  and  sincere.  Its  existence  side 
by  side  with  internecine  dissension,  which  after  a  century 
shows  little  sign  of  abating,  is  one  of  the  many  paradoxes 
encountered  in  the  study  of  French  character,  and  is  a 
result  of  the  abnormal  nature  of  the  great  upheaval. 


II 

The  French  form  of  the  word  patriot  is  not  in  its 
familiar  sense  of  ancient  usage.  St.  Simon  thus  applied 
it  to  Vauban,  but  previously  it  was  a  synonym  of  com- 

1  Twenty-second  anniversary  of  the  Commune,  celebrated  at  the  Maison 
du  Peuple,  Paris,  March  18,  1893,  the  day  after  the  death  of  M.  Ferry, 
which  occurred  just  after  his  election  to  the  Presidency  of  the  Senate, 
eight  years  after  his  dismissal  from  office  in  1885. 


PATRIOTISM  231 


patriot,  in  which  sense  Rousseau  continued  to  use  it, 
though  by  his  time  the  Encyclopaedists  had  out  of  it 
constructed  the  word  patriotisme  to  connote  amour  de  la 
patrie.  Until  the  Revolution,  however,  that  sentiment 
was  associated  with  the  idea  of  loyalty  to  the  crown,  or 
even  to  the  person  of  the  sovereign.  The  kings  had 
made  France.  For  eight  centuries,  by  marriage,  con- 
quest, or  heritage,  the  fabric  of  France  was  built  up  by 
its  monarchs,  who  were  the  liberators  of  the  territory 
from  the  English,  the  Spaniards,  and  the  Pope,  turn  by 
turn,  and  had  consolidated  the  kingdom  by  absorbing 
the  independent  domains  of  Brittany,  Burgundy,  and 
Provence.  Thus  the  first  Emigration  (unlike  the  second, 
which  was  a  more  justifiable  flight  from  death  after  the 
throne  was  upset  in  1792)  has  been  judged  perhaps  more 
harshly  than  it  merited.  The  feeling  that  patriotism 
signified  the  cause  of  the  King  was  so  strong  among  the 
nobles  that,  in  crossing  the  frontier  and  in  joining  the 
Prussian  or  the  Austrian  to  fight  the  Revolutionary  levies 
of  France,  they  believed  that  they  were  doing  their  duty 
as  good  Frenchmen;  though  they  gave  the  impression 
that  they  were  leaving  in  the  lurch  their  sovereigns, 
whose  fate  was  aggravated  by  their  action.  Moreover 
the  troops  which  they  and  their  fathers  had  commanded 
in  battles  won  or  lost  for  France  were  often  foreign  mer- 
cenaries, and  this  system  kept  up  the  idea  that  it  was 
as  a  personal  service  to  the  king  that  they  offered  their 
lives.  No  officers  were  more  intrepid  in  the  field  than 
they,  but  it  was  as  valiant  domestics  of  the  royal  house- 
hold that  they  went  to  fight,  paid  by  privileges,  but  not 
allowed  to  take  any  part  in  the  affairs  of  their  country. 
Thus  servitude  became  the  badge  of  the  nobility,  which 


232  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

was  not  an  aristocracy,  as  it  represented  no  interests  in 
the  nation  outside  the  institution  of  royalty.  It  was  this 
curious  conception  of  their  position  which  prompted  large 
numbers  of  the  nobles  to  rally  to  Napoleon  when  he 
opened  the  gates  of  France  to  them.  Mme.  de  Stael 
relates  that  when  the  bearer  of  one  of  the  noblest  names 
of  the  ancient  court  was  reproached  for  accepting  the 
office  of  chamberlain  to  the  usurper  of  the  throne  of  his 
king  by  divine  right,  he  replied :  "  What  would  you  have 
me  do?     One  must  serve  somebody."^ 

The  Emigration,  which  aggravated  the  feeling  of  the 
Revolutionaries  against  the  invaders  of  France,  was  no 
doubt  one  of  the  strongest  factors  in  the  evolution  of  the 
patriotic  sentiment  which  came  into  being  at  that  period. 
The  deputies  of  the  States-General  formed  the  first 
Assembly  which  in  France  had  been  animated  with  a 
national  sentiment  to  the  exclusion  of  all  provincial 
distinction.  When  the  ceremony  of  the  Federation  took 
place  a  year  after  the  fall  of  the  Bastille,  when  Talley- 
rand for  the  last  time  publicly  pontificated  as  a  bishop, 
the  fact  that  the  King's  brother,  with  a  crowd  of  the 
nobility,  was  plotting  with  the  foreigner  across  the  fron- 
tier, inspired  most  of  those  who  took  part  in  the  cere- 
mony with  a  feeling  entirely  new  to  French  hearts. 
Thus  was  the  patrie  founded  and  consecrated.  Then  the 
first  battalions  which  marched  against  the  invasion  were 
specially  invested  with  the  name  of  "patriot,"  and  we 
have  noticed  the  beneficent  effect  which  that  movement 
had  on  the  spirit  of  the  Revolution.  At  the  same  time 
the  idea  of  Patriotism  did  not  become  clearly  defined  as 
a  sentiment  to  be  directed  against  the  foreigner.  The 
1  Considerations  sur  la  Bevolution  Frani^ise,  partie  iv.  c.  11. 


CH.  IV  ENGLISH  AND  FRENCH  PATRIOTISM  233 

Vendean  insurrection,  though  the  uprising  of  the  West 
was  abetted  from  outside,  was  a  civil  war,  and  the  name 
of  "patriot"  assumed  in  it  by  the  Republicans  became 
merely  the  title  of  one  of  the  contending  factions. 

The  end  of  it  all  was  that  the  idea  of  patriotism,  which 
took  its  rise  under  circumstances  abnormal  and  unprece- 
dented, amid  the  conflicting  turmoil  of  foreign  invasion, 
revolution,  anarchy,  and  civil  war,  became  a  territorial 
rather  than  a  racial  sentiment.  The  opposite  phenome- 
non is  found  in  our  country.  A  Briton,  while  he  has 
an  abstract  reverence  for  the  island  of  his  origin,  has 
rarely  the  clinging  attachment  to  its  soil  which  a  French- 
man has  to  the  land  of  France ;  but  he  is  less  harsh  to  the 
men  of  his  own  race,  in  the  destiny  of  which,  established 
in  no  matter  what  quarter  of  the  globe,  he  has  a  profound 
belief. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  in  this  inquiry  into  the  relations 
of  the  Revolution  with  modern  France,  that  the  French 
idea  of  patriotism,  developed  in  the  last  decade  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  is  that  which  subsists  still  in  France ; 
whereas  the  British  conception  of  patriotism  has  under- 
gone a  complete  change  in  the  intervening  hundred  years, 
having  been  modified  by  the  expansion  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race,  and  by  the  general  march  of  civilisation. 
The  instances  quoted  in  these  pages  show  that  at  the 
present  day  Frenchmen,  when  divided  on  political  ques- 
tions, are  as  cruel  to  one  another  as  ever;  while  it  is 
probable  that  their  affection  for  the  soil  of  France  is 
deeper  than  at  any  previous  period.  The  mourning  for 
the  loss  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  has  not  been  merely  the 
wail  of  wounded  national  vanity;  nor  did  it  chiefly 
spring  from  regret  for  the  lost  populations,  for  as  for 


234  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

the  Alsacians,  Fiance  took  little  pains  to  ungermanise 
them  in  language  and  in  education  when  they  were 
French  subjects.  The  sorrow  of  the  French  is  that  two 
fair  provinces,  with  their  mountains  and  vineyards  and 
towns,  and  above  all  with  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine, 
should  no  longer  form  part  of  the  soil  of  France.  To 
live  on  the  tract  of  Europe  bearing  that  name  is  in  a 
Frenchman's  eyes  the  greatest  of  human  privileges  —  so 
great  that  he  shrinks  from  practical  ideas  of  colonial 
aggrandisement  which  can  only  be  purchased  at  the 
price  of  exile  from  France.  At  industrial  exhibitions  in 
French  cities  charts  of  the  world  are  exposed  to  illustrate 
the  produce  of  the  colonies.  On  them  the  possessions  of 
France  are  marked  with  vivid  colour,  so  bountifully 
spread  that  an  usher  from  the  local  Lycee  conducting  his 
ingenuous  troop  to  be  impressed  with  the  enterprise  of 
France  might,  with  the  untravelled  aptness  of  a  map- 
making  school-master,  exclaim :  — 

Quae  reg^o  in  terris  nostri  non  plena  laboris? 

But  if  the  draughtsman  had  added  to  each  painted  area 
the  number  of  French  settlers  inhabiting  it,  the  statistics 
would  show  that  for  the  purpose  of  the  expansion  of  the 
Gallic  race,  France  might  as  well  claim  dominion  over 
the  Polar  Regions  as  over  some  of  its  nominal  posses- 
sions. Even  in  Algeria,  at  the  gates  of  France,  less 
distant  from  Provence  than  is  Normandy,  a  sparse  French 
population  discontentedly  neglects  the  riches  of  a  splen- 
did heritage,  ever  gazing  over  the  Mediterranean  in  the 
hope  of  regaining  its  native  shores. 

No  doubt  the  longing  which  expatriated  Frenchmen 
have  for  their  country  is  less  due  to  any  theory  of  patri- 


en.  IV  PATRIOTISM  AND  COLONISATION  235 

otism  evolved  at  the  Revolution  than  to  the  amenity  of 
France  as  a  land  to  live  in.  There  is  indeed  no  portion 
of  the  earth's  surface  so  favoured  by  nature.  Its  climates 
are  genial,  the  products  of  its  picturesque  soil  are  as  rich 
as  they  are  varied,  and  its  offspring  are  endowed  not  only 
with  the  instinct  of  making  the  best  use  of  them,  but 
with  the  means  of  enjoying  them,  which  a  wide  disper- 
sion of  wealth  permits.  The  comparative  inclemency  of 
the  British  sky  is  not  the  sole  reason  why  Britons  have 
a  less  affection  for  the  home  of  their  race  than  have  the 
French  for  theirs;  but  we  have  all  known  Australians 
and  other  colonists,  of  exemplary  loyalty  to  the  Crown 
of  England,  who  after  a  brief  sojourn  within  their  re- 
visited native  shores,  spent  in  carpings  at  the  fogs  which 
enshroud  them,  depart  again  ill-content  to  end  their 
days  elsewhere  than  in  their  unforced  exile.  Our  Indian 
story,  however,  shows  that  Englishmen  have  not  built  up 
the  Empire  merely  as  epicures  of  climate.  Moreover, 
when  we  were  laying  its  foundations  both  in  the  East 
and  in  the  West  the  French  were  our  active  rivals  from 
the  Hoogley,  where  they  retain  an  outpost,  to  the  St. 
Lawrence,  where  their  language  still  is  spoken,  though 
at  that  time  more  self-denial  and  courage  were  demanded 
of  colonists  than  now. 

The  evaporation  in  France  of  the  colonising  spirit,  and 
the  increase  of  that  unimperial  form  of  patriotism  mani- 
fested in  a  clinging  to  the  cradle  of  the  race,  may  be 
ascribed  to  the  material  results  of  the  Revolution  and  of 
the  subsequent  resettlement.  It  not  only  made  France 
a  pleasanter  abode  for  the  multitude  by  the  abolition  of 
the  fiscal  burdens  whi(>h  ground  the  joy  of  life  out  of  the 
humble;  but  by  going  beyond  the  suppression  of  primo- 


236      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

geniture,  in  denying  testamentary  liberty  to  citizens,  it 
secured  competence  to  the  great  majority  to  enjoy  the 
bountiful  products  of  the  land.  Similar  restrictions  on 
the  power  of  testators  would  not  have  the  same  effect  in 
our  country.  Laws  which  regulate  the  making  of  wills 
affect  only  those  members  of  the  community  who  have 
property  to  bequeath,  and  not  a  large  proportion  of  the 
inhabitants  of  the  United  Kingdom  would  be  better  off 
if  parents  were  prevented  by  law  from  disinheriting  any 
of  their  progeny.  But  in  France  the  national  virtue  of 
thrift  tends  to  make  every  one  a  capitalist,  and  the  fact 
that  down  to  a  low  social  level  few  marriages  are  con- 
tracted without  dowry,  shows  how  widely  diffused  are 
riches  among  all  classes.  Even  before  the  Revolution 
the  people  were  thrifty,  and  their  devices  to  hide  from 
the  rapacious  tax-gatherer  the  hoards  which  they  devoted 
to  the  purchase  of  land  sharpened  the  quality.  Its  com- 
bination with  the  system  of  forced  testamentary  division 
of  property  has  for  its  result  the  possession  of  indepen- 
dent fortune  by  a  large  proportion  of  the  population. 
Hence  the  men  of  various  categories  who  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  gone  forth  from  the  British  Isles  to 
build  up  an  Empire  beyond  the  seas  have  in  France  had 
new  motives  for  staying  at  home, — from  the  cadets  of 
our  rich  families  who,  dissatisfied  with  straitened  ex- 
istence on  the  pittance  of  younger  sons,  were  the  first 
pioneers  of  some  of  our  most  thriving  settlements,  to  the 
superfluous  offspring  of  our  villages  and  towns  who 
emigrated  to  escape  pauperism  in  the  mother-country. 
Thus  the  popular  advantages  which  France  offers  as  a 
land  of  residence  restrain  its  colonising  forces,  and  tend 
to  restrict  the  genius  of  the  French  race  to  a  tract  of 


CH.  IV  CHECKS  ON  COLONIAL  ENTERPRISE  237 

European  ground  no  larger  than  that  which  it  filled  two 
centuries  ago. 

This  diffusion  of  unambitious  comfort  has  another 
drawback.  As  the  revenue  from  the  modest  heritage 
which  falls  to  most  Frenchmen  needs  only  a  small  sup- 
plement to  suffice  for  the  support  of  a  family,  an  ever- 
increasing  number  of  the  male  population  wish  to  be  in 
the  salaried  service  of  the  State.  Thus  the  army  of 
functionaries,  necessarily  great  under  a  centralised  gov- 
ernment, is  further  swollen  by  the  place-seeking  demands 
of  the  population,  and  is  a  wasteful  drain  on  the  re- 
sources of  the  country,  slenderly  remunerated  but  need- 
less posts  being  created  wholesale  at  the  expense  of  the 
tax-payers.  Another  disadvantage  of  the  testamentary 
law  is  that  its  operation  after  several  generations  has 
caused  such  an  excessive  subdivision  of  landed  property 
that  peasant  proprietors  meet  the  inevitable  difficulty 
by  limiting  the  number  of  their  children.  "Whence  the 
shrinking  birth-rate  of  France,  which  is  a  further  check 
on  colonial  enterprise,  and  in  the  days  of  universal  con- 
scription on  the  Continent  is  a  menace  to  French  se- 
curity in  the  face  of  the  steady  growth  of  the  armed 
nation  beyond  the  Vosges. 

If  an  era  of  peace  had  arrived,  and  if  to  inhabit  in 
material  comfort  a  genial  and  abundant  tract  of  Europe 
secured  greatness  for  a  nation,  the  situation  of  the 
French  would  be  more  enviable  than  it  is.  But  in  the 
century  which  has  diffused  well-being  in  France,  Europe 
has  ceased  to  be  the  uncontested  centre  of  gravity  of  the 
human  race,  and  the  French  have  profited  less  than  other 
civilised  and  intelligent  peoples  from  the  improved  means 
of  communication  which  have  effected  the  change.     They 


238  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

use  the  ocean-going  steamers  for  the  transport  of  their 
merchandise ;  they  multiply  their  custom-houses  in  Asia 
and  in  Africa  to  mark  their  so-called  colonies;  but  for 
the  conveyance  of  men  and  women  over  the  surface  of  the 
globe  the  passenger  ships,  even  those  which  float  the 
French  flag,  would  be  lightly  freighted  were  it  not  for 
Americans  who  cross  the  Atlantic  and  English  who  sail 
the  Eastern  seas,  as  there  are  few  sea-going  travellera 
from  France,  save  reluctant  functionaries  and  more  eager 
soldiers,  the  chief  agents  of  French  colonisation. 

It  is  not  merely  to  extend  the  British  Empire  that  our 
countrymen  utilise  modern  means  of  locomotion.  We 
have  the  temperament  of  migratory  travel,  and  our  par- 
ticular sentiment  of  patriotism,  inspired  by  race  rather 
than  by  locality,  makes  us  facile  settlers  in  foreign  lands, 
whither  we  carry  some  of  our  native  habits  and  all  our 
native  allegiance.  An  Englishman  whose  occupation 
forces  him  to  live  abroad  is  never  an  object  of  com- 
miseration to  his  friends  at  home  if  the  climate  of  his 
domicile  be  agreeable,  as  is  a  Frenchman  under  similar 
circumstances.  Indeed,  an  increasing  number  of  our 
wealthy  class  voluntarily  spend  half  of  the  year  on  the 
Continent,  often  establishing  luxurious  homes  on  alien 
territory  favoured  by  the  sun.  There  are  distinguished 
servants  of  the  British  crown  who,  having  been  employed 
for  years  beyond  the  seas,  do  not  hasten  back  to  the 
scenes  of  their  youth  when  their  work  is  done,  but  prefer 
to  grow  old  in  tasting  the  joys  of  a  novel  foreign  resi- 
dence. This  is  incomprehensible  to  the  French;  for 
though  in  France  a  person  who  has  served  his  country 
with  distinction  as  ambassador  or  in  other  high  post 
enjoys  lamentably  little  social  consideration  at  home,  yet 


CH.  IV  RACIAL  AND  LOCAL  PATRIOTISM  239 

such  is  the  longing  of  every  Frenchman  to  feel  under  his 
feet  the  soil  of  France,  that  brilliant  careers  have  been 
prematurely  exchanged  for  obscurity  to  satisfy  that  fancy. 
Time  will  show  whether  this  sentimental  growth  of  a 
hundred  years  will  be  for  the  eventual  glory  of  France. 
The  idea  is  admirable  and  worthy  of  all  sympathy,  but  it 
seems  to  have  been  developed  rather  too  late  in  the  his- 
tory of  civilisation.  Rapid  communication  is  more  stimu- 
lating to  racial  than  to  local  patriotism,  and  the  love  of 
Frenchmen  for  their  mother  soil  has  reached  its  intensity 
in  the  century  which  has  put  Acadia  and  other  lost  over- 
sea possessions  of  France  within  nearer  reach  of  Paris 
than  was  Albi  when  the  explorer  La  Perouse  was  born 
there  under  Louis  XV.  or  Marseilles  and  Brest  when 
Barras  sailed  from  those  ports  to  India  to  see  France 
losing  its  last  chances  ^  of  founding  an  Oriental  empire, 
before  he  finally  settled  in  his  native  land,  and  helped 
endow  it  with  the  Revolution  and  its  sedentary  after- 
consequences. 

Ill 

Patriotism  of  the  soil  would  also  seem  to  need  as  its 
complement,  to  make  it  more  effective  for  the  elevation 
of  France,  a  greater  harmony  among  Frenchmen  at 
moments  of  national  misfortune.  Patriotism  ought  then 
to  display  itself  as  a  virtue  rising  high  above  party  strife, 

1  Barras'  two  voyages  to  India  were  commenced  in  1776  and  in  1781. 
On  the  latter  occasion  he  sailed  from  Brest  with  the  famous  Bailli  de 
Suflren  on  the  expedition  which  French  authorities  say  would  have  ended 
in  the  destruction  of  British  domination  in  India  but  for  the  peace  of  1783. 
Talleyrand  relates  that  in  1766  he  took  seventeen  days  to  go  from  near 
Angoul§me  to  Paris  in  the  fast  Bordeaux  mail-coach,  the  time  now  of  a 
voyage  from  France  to  India. 


240  THE   REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

and  French  critics  have  flattered  us  by  comparing  the 
calm  of  the  English  people  with  the  passionate  emotion 
of  their  own  fellow-countrymen  on  such  occasions.^  The 
fall  of  Khartoum  was  humiliating  for  British  pride,  but 
the  news  of  it,  though  bitterly  deplored,  caused  no  par- 
oxysm of  frenzy  in  England  as  did  in  France,  a  few 
weeks  later,  the  tidings  of  the  French  reverse  at  Lang- 
Son,  when,  amid  a  scene  of  wild  fury  in  the  Chamber, 
M.  Jules  Ferry  was  chased  eternally  from  office,  while 
the  raging  mob  outside  clamoured  to  throw  him  into  the 
Seine.  Although  ministers  held  responsible,  justly  or 
unjustly,  for  disasters  are  not  thus  treated  in  our  coun- 
try, the  envying  contrast  which  French  publicists  draw 
should  not  fill  us  with  a  complacent  sense  of  superiority, 
but  rather  with  a  feeling  of  thankfulness  that  our  domes- 
tic history  has  been  of  a  nature  to  enable  us  to  cultivate 
an  imperturbable  spirit  during  many  generations.  It 
was  not  always  so. 

The  tendency  to  make  scapegoats  of  public  men  is 
incidental  to  a  state  of  unsettled  government.  The  most 
celebrated  victim  of  that  type  in  modern  times  was  an 
Englishman,  whose  fate  was  made  immortal  by  a  French 
epigram.  When  Candide  crossed  the  Channel  to  com- 
pare English  insanity  with  that  of  other  nations,  the 
first  sight  which  met  his  eyes  was  a  British  officer  being 

1  In  the  Annee  Politique  for  1886,  edited  by  Andr6  Daniel  (M.  Andr6 
Lebon,  since  Minister  of  Commerce  and  of  the  Colonies),  the  following 
occurs  :  "  L'attitude  du  Parlement  fran^ais  devant  I'incident  de  Lang-Son 
fut  d'autant  plus  attristante  qu'au  m§me  moment  le  Parlement  anglais 
avait  8onn6  un  admirable  exemple  de  sang-froid  en  presence  de  diflScult^ 
de  tous  points  comparables  ^  celles  du  Tonkin."  M.  Gaston  Deschamps 
and  M.  Sarcey,  among  other  eminent  French  writers,  have  paid  similar 
complimenta  to  the  attitude  of  England  at  such  crises. 


CH.  IV  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  SCAPEGOATS  241 

shot  with  solemnity  by  British  soldiers  on  the  quarter- 
deck of  a  man-of-war,  and  he  was  informed  that  in  Eng- 
land it  was  thought  a  good  thing  from  time  to  time  to 
put  to  death  an  admiral  to  encourage  the  others.^  Yet 
Voltaire,  who  thus  stigmatised  the  sacrifice  of  the  ill- 
starred  Byng,  was  in  his  strictures  usually  more  merciful 
to  England  than  to  France.  In  the  half-century  before 
the  French  Revolution,  for  which  he  was  preparing  the 
way,  amid  all  the  admiration  excited  by  the  comparative 
liberty  enjoyed  under  the  British  Constitution,  continen- 
tal observers  did  not  regard  our  kingdom  as  a  pattern  of 
settled  government.  No  doubt  when,  in  1756,  to  obtain 
the  death  of  Admiral  Byng  for  an  error  of  judgment,  the 
people  were  inflamed  to  madness,  the  city  of  London  call- 
ing for  vengeance,  and  the  cry  being  echoed  from  every 
corner  of  the  realm,^  the  Hanoverian  succession  was  prac- 
tically established.  But  only  a  few  years  previously, 
before  the  '45  scattered  the  hopes  of  the  Jacobites, 
another  intelligent  Frenchman,  younger  than  Voltaire, 
thus  discussed  the  chances  of  the  Old  Pretender,  whom 
he  saw  at  Rome,  though  he  did  not  impress  him  favour- 
ably. "It  is  not  possible  for  him,"  wrote  Charles  de 
Brosses  in  1740,  "  to  give  up  all  hopes  of  recovering  the 
crown  of  a  country  so  given  to  revolutions.  .  .  .  The 
spirit  of  the  English  nation  is  to  hate  the  ruling  mon- 

1  Candide,  c.  xxiii, 

2  Macaulay  in  his  essay  on  Thackeray's  History  of  the  Earl  of  Chat- 
ham, says  of  the  year  in  which  Byng  was  shot :  "  At  this  time  appeared 
Brown's  Estimate,  a  book  universally  read,  admired,  and  believed.  The 
author  convinced  his  readers  that  they  were  a  race  of  cowards  and  scoun- 
drels :  that  nothing  could  save  them."  This  is  quite  the  tone  of  French 
pessimists  of  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  the  sentiment  which 
sacrificed  Byng  is  rife  in  France, 


242  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

arch,  be  he  whom  he  may."^  To  France  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  might  be  applied  the  judgment  which  the 
president  of  the  Parlement  de  Dijon  passed  upon  Eng- 
land at  the  moment  when  the  House  of  Brunswick  had 
occupied  the  throne  the  same  space  of  time  which  the 
Third  Republic  had  survived  in  the  sixtieth  year  of 
Queen  Victoria. 

The  Third  Republic  will  not  be  as  durable  as  the 
Hanoverian  dynasty,  but  if  any  settled  regime  could 
only  last  in  France  the  span  of  one  of  the  sexagenarian 
reigns  of  monarchs  of  that  line  it  would  be  an  unbounded 
blessing  to  the  country.  Long  reigns  are  not  of  auspi- 
cious tradition  in  France,  for  when  that  of  Louis  XV. 
ended  a  hundred  and  thirty-one  years  after  the  accession 
of  his  immediate  predecessor,  the  administration  of  the 
land  was  so  evil  that  all  the  glories  of  the  Age,  won  by 
the  French  in  art,  letters,  and  arms,  could  not  counter- 
vail the  menacing  discontent,  which  indeed  was  encour- 
aged by  the  literary  prodigies  of  the  later  period.  It  was 
not  the  length  of  the  reigns  of  Louis  XIV.  and  of  his 
great-grandson  which  produced  the  splendour  of  the 
Grand  Si^cle ;  it  was  the  stability  of  the  Ancient  Mon- 
archy which  gave  the  genius  of  the  people  its  opportunity 
to  fructify.  The  prolonged  sway  of  a  strong  and  re- 
spected ruler  would  no  doubt  be  beneficent  for  France, 
but  such  benefits  are  not  at  the  beck  of  human  societies. 
Modern  democracies  have,  however,  the  choice  of  the 
regime  under  which  they  will  be  governed,  and  it  is 
within  the  power  of  the  people  of  France  to  disembarrass 

1  Letters  of  De  Brosses,  translated  by  Lord  Ronald  Sutherland  Gower, 
rxi,  (Lettrea  familieres  ecrites  d'ltalie  en  17i}9  et  1740,  par  Charles  de 
Brosses:  Lettre  xl.  6d.  de  1869.) 


CH.  IV       THE  ORDERLY  INSTINCT  OP  THE  FRENCH  243 


themselves  of  one  untoward  heritage  of  the  Revolution 
—  unstable  government. 

The  forms  which  it  has  taken  under  the  Third  Repub- 
lic will  be  carefully  examined  in  the  following  pages. 
Here  the  general  observation  may  be  made  that  the  spirit 
of  the  nation  is  opposed  to  the  idea  expressed  in  the  word 
"improvisation,"  which,  now  a  political  term  in  daily 
use,  till  this  century  had  no  place  in  the  French  lan- 
guage, excepting  to  describe  the  Italian  facility  of 
making  unprepared  a  poem  or  a  speech.  In  spite  of 
the  ebullient  element  in  the  French  nature,  which  in 
troublous  times  bursts  out  with  ferocity,  and  in  diver- 
sion takes  the  form  of  excessive  blitheness,  —  in  spite  of 
the  qualities  which  induced  M.  Taine  in  a  misanthropic 
passage  to  liken  the  vagaries  of  his  countrymen  to  the 
antics  of  monkeys,^  —  there  are  no  creatures  of  the  human 
species  so  orderly  and  so  methodical  as  the  French.  In 
the  private  life  of  the  people,  their  thrift,  their  care  in 
keeping  accounts,  their  skill  in  organising  simple  pleas- 
ures in  the  intervals  of  toil,  the  neat  attire  of  the  women, 
the  formality  and  good  service  of  the  meals  even  in 
humble  homes,  all  testify  to  a  provident  and  systematic 
temperament  inconsistent  with  improvisation.  The  habit 
of  thought  of  the  French  is  equally  opposed  to  it.  They 
are  wont  instinctively  to  classify  and  to  formulate  their 
ideas,  and  the  educational  training  of  all  grades  fosters 
this  tendency.  An  English  priest,  once  attached  to  the 
diocese  of  Paris,  told  me  how  impressed  he  was  with  the 

^  "  L'hoinme  est  un  animal  tr6s  voisin  du  singe.  ...  De  Ik  en  lui  im 
fonds  persistant  de  brutality,  de  f^rocit^,  d'instincts  violents  et  destruc- 
teurs,  anxquels  s'ajoutent,  s'il  est  Frangais,  la  gaiety,  le  rire  et  le  plus 
Strange  besoin  de  garabader,  de  polissonner  au  milieu  des  d^g§.ts  qa'il 
fait."  — Ancien  Regime,  liv.  iii.  c.  iv.  3. 


244  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

contrast  of  the  confessions  in  the  two  countries  of  young 
girls  before  the  age  when  the  sacrament  is  a  psycho- 
logical revelation  or  a  perfunctory  routine.  The  youth- 
ful English  penitent  told  a  tale  which  had  neither 
beginning  nor  end,  tangled  and  unreflecting.  The 
French  child  unfolded  a  calmly  prepared  theme,  a  model 
of  lucid  symmetry,  in  which  all  that  had  to  be  said  was 
arranged  under  precise  categories. 

The  same  systematic  disposition  the  French  like  to  see 
and  to  feel  in  their  government.  Their  propensity  is  not 
to  improvise,  but  to  hierarchise;  and  so,  side  by  side 
with  the  Parliamentary  Republic,  of  which  every  Presi- 
dent has  abdicated  save  one  who  was  murdered,  and 
under  which  a  minister  who  retains  his  portfolio  for  a 
year  is  a  curiosity,  subsists  a  series  of  stable  official 
hierarchies,  administrative,  ecclesiastical,  military,  and 
judicial,  which  incarnate  the  spirit  of  the  nation.  The 
secret  of  the  completeness  of  Napoleon's  domination  over 
the  French,  and  of  his  ability  to  reconstruct  France,  in 
evolving  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  the  Revolution,  Avas 
that  he  recognised  the  needs  and  the  qualities  of  the 
nation.  His  warlike  genius  gave  him  authority  and 
opportunity,  but  his  civil  edifice  would  have  been  swept 
away  with  his  conquests  and  his  dynasty  had  he  not  been 
animated  with  the  spirit  of  the  nation  he  was  called  to 
rule  and  to  reconstitute.  His  severest  judge  of  our  time, 
M.  Taine,  has  described  his  mind  as  divided  into  "  thi-ee 
atlases,"  the  first  military,  the  second  administrative, 
and  the  third  personal,  each  mental  volume  being  sub- 
divided into  a  score  of  sections,  all  under  methodic 
headings;  so  that  Napoleon  when  taking  a  decision  on 
any  question  of  strategy  or  munitions,  of  taxes  or  tribu- 


CH.  IV        FRANCE  THE   VICTIM  OF  IMPROVISATION  246 

nals,  or  requiring  the  character  of  any  individual,  had 
only  to  turn  to  the  marvellous  cartulary  of  his  mind, 
where  every  subject  was  classified  and  docketed.  This 
quality  showed  that  despite  his  alien  origin  he  was  the 
providential  reconstructor  of  France;  and  no  more  con- 
spicuous monument  of  the  national  disposition  has  ever 
been  erected  than  the  work  in  which  M.  Taine  criticises 
the  giant  who  exemplified  and  appreciated  it.  His 
treatise  on  the  Origins  of  Contemporary  France  is  itself 
a  masterpiece  of  classification,  proclaiming  him  a  typical 
example  of  French  intellect,  trained  to  the  highest  point. 
From  the  philosopher  among  the  National  Archives,  or 
in  his  library  at  Menthon,  analysing  and  marshalling  the 
elements  of  the  fabric  of  modern  France,  to  the  pains- 
taking functionaries  in  public  offices,  tabulating  the 
statistics  and  reports  which  facilitate  all  inquiry  into 
French  institutions,  the  people  which  willingly  sub- 
mitted to  Napoleon's  codes  and  administrative  hierar- 
chies are  all  in  different  degrees  prone  to  classify  and  to 
stereotype.  They  like  to  have  everything  methodically 
arranged  in  its  place,  in  their  government  as  in  their 
account-books  or  in  their  domestic  cupboards;  and  this 
is  the  nation  which  has  continually  to  accept  the  impro- 
vised, where  outward  forms  of  government  are  constantly 
being  renewed,  and  where  unexpected  adventure  is 
always  imminent.  Thus  the  energetic  and  passionate 
side  of  the  national  character,  which  when  disciplined 
has  borne  France  to  the  front  on  many  a  contested  field 
in  war  and  in  peace,  is  kept  in  a  perpetual  state  of  irri- 
tation, with  the  result  of  internecine  strife.  It  began  at 
the  Restoration,  made  inevitable  by  the  insensate  ambi- 
tion of  the  great  organiser  of  the   Revolution,    which 


246      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    hk.  i 

tempted  him  from  his  constructive  work  to  bring  upon 
France  the  chastisement  of  Europe.  So  though  his 
administrative  edifice  survived  him,  fitted  with  its  hie- 
rarchies suitable  to  the  wants  and  tastes  of  the  nation, 
to  it  was  superadded  the  improvised  simulacrum  of  the 
British  constitution.  We  shall  see  in  these  pages  what 
ills  were  inflicted  on  France  by  the  empirical  importation 
of  a  flimsy  copy  of  a  structure  slowly  piled  up  by  a  dis- 
similar people. 

This  unnatural  state  of  improvisation  is  thus  a  result 
of  the  Revolution,  which  may  be  held  accountable  for 
much  of  the  political  ill-temper  of  the  French.  As  each 
generation  grows  up  it  learns,  as  the  lesson  of  the  cen- 
tury, that  whatever  regime  the  country  submits  to  is 
provisional,  and  will  pass  away,  to  be  held  up  to  con- 
tumely by  those  who  will  succeed  it.  In  a  library  at 
Lyons,  when  looking  through  an  encyclopaedia  of  serious 
pretensions,  under  the  letter  N  there  met  my  eye  a  series 
of  violent  lampoons,  in  the  guise  of  biographies,  of  the 
various  persons  who  had  borne  the  name  Napoleon.  Not 
only  was  Louis  Napoleon  arraigned  as  a  political  criminal, 
but  his  private  life  was  aspersed,  a  list  of  his  mistresses 
was  given,  and  his  mother.  Queen  Hortense,  was  treated 
as  a  frail  adventuress.  The  great  Emperor  was  vilified 
in  the  same  tone ;  so  to  see  what  this  strange  instructor 
of  the  people  had  to  say  of  early  passages  in  his  life,  I 
turned  to  the  part  containing  the  letter  B,  and  in  it  all 
the  Bonapartes  were  flattered  with  adulation  as  fulsome 
as  the  abuse  was  scurrilous  of  the  Napoleons.  Hortense 
Beauharnais,  the  wanton  of  the  later  volume,  was  a  high- 
souled  princess,  as  was  Pauline  Borghese,  against  whom 
a    fearful    insinuation    was    made    under    the    heading 


CH,  IV        FRANCE   THE   VICTIM  OF   IMPROVISATION  247 


"Napoleon."  The  explanation  was,  that  the  first  letters 
of  the  alphabet  had  been  dealt  with  in  1867,  whereas  the 
encyclopsedists  only  reached  N  in  1874,  when  the  Second 
Empire  had  been  succeeded  by  the  Third  Republic.  But 
what  a  lesson  it  taught  to  the  youth  of  France  who 
sought  their  first  ideas  in  political  philosophy  in  this 
popular  source  of  instruction!  For  worse  than  the 
scepticism  here  inculcated  was  the  consecration,  as  a 
doctrine,  of  servile  mob-fickleness  towards  once  adulated 
rulers,  which,  ever  found  in  all  communities,  is  usually 
not  made  a  matter  of  boast.  The  treatment  inflicted  on 
the  twice-fallen  dynasty  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  special 
wrath  roused  by  the  disastrous  end  of  Louis  Napoleon's 
policy ;  for  if  after  Sedan  his  life  was  preserved  only  by 
his  being  sent  to  Germany,  in  which  country  he  had 
made  as  many  widows  and  orx)hans  as  in  France,  where 
he  would  have  been  torn  to  pieces,  he  enjoyed  merely 
the  discipline  which  other  rulers  of  France  had  tasted, 
and  which  was  in  store  for  men  of  the  Republic  who 
proclaimed  his  downfall.  The  aged  Louis  Philippe 
escaping  disguised  in  a  farmer's  cart  through  Normandy 
to  the  sea-shore  in  1848,  and  Jules  Ferry  flying  for  his 
life  from  the  people  of  Paris  in  1885,  were  equally  vic- 
tims of  the  principle  enshrined  in  the  popular  encyclo- 
paedia. It,  in  turn,  is  the  outcome  of  a  century  of 
Revolution  wherein  rulers  are  only  temporary  expedients 
in  the  nation  which  of  all  others  needs  a  strong  and 
stable  executive  as  the  complement  of  the  orderly  hierar- 
chies of  its  choice. 

None  who  take  part  in  French  public  life  can  help 
being  infected,  more  or  less,  with  either  bitterness  or 
scepticism.      Fortunately  for  the  land,   it  is  the  latter 


248     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

quality  which  prevails,  and  it  often  takes  a  genial  form. 
Our  English  ballad  of  the  Vicar  of  Bray  seems  to  suggest 
that  the  diocese  of  Oxford  could  have  well  dispensed 
with  the  incumbency  of  that  divine;  but  it  referred  to 
the  period  when  England  was  a  country  where  the  actual 
regime  was  liable  to  be  upset  by  a  revolution,  and  since 
1789  France  has  been  lucky  to  produce  citizens  animated 
with  the  spirit  of  the  perpetual  curate.  Such  a  one  was 
for  over  fifty  years  the  mayor  of  a  village  which  I  know 
in  the  Landes.  First  appointed  by  Louis  Philippe,  he 
was  an  Orleanist  until  the  Revolution  of  February,  but 
before  he  had  time  to  become  a  Republican  the  Coup 
d'Etat  of  1851  made  him  an  Imperialist.  It  was  only 
a  pleasure  deferred,  as  after  the  war  he  became  a  devoted 
servant  of  the  Third  Republic,  and  continued  so  to  be,  as 
neither  the  Comte  de  Chambord  nor  General  Boulanger 
succeeded  in  upsetting  it.  Such  philosophers  are  the 
salvation  of  Revolutionary  France;  and  that  their  quali- 
ties are  appreciated  was  shown  in  this  case,  as  both  when 
the  mayoralty  was  a  government  appointment  and  when 
it  was  an  elective  office,  whatever  regime  was  established 
and  whatever  the  political  tendency  of  the  region,  he  was 
always  chosen  to  preside  over  the  affairs  of  his  commune. 
Thus  it  is  that  France  survives,  although  for  more  than 
a  century  it  has  spent  its  intelligence  and  its  forces  in 
trying  to  find  out  under  what  form  of  government  it  had 
better  live.  But  it  is  not  surprising  that  an  air  of 
pessimism  should  hang  over  a  nation  in  which  the  most 
salutary  symptom  is  the  indifference  of  the  great  majority 
in  all  matters  political. 


FRENCH  VICARS  OF  BRAY  249 


IV 

Besides  the  irritation  induced  by  the  instability  of  gov- 
ernments, there  is  another  cause,  less  directly  connected 
with  the  Revolution,  of  the  ill-conditioned  tone  of  French 
political  controversy  at  times  of  public  trouble,  when 
internecine  strife  ought  to  be  hushed  instead  of  being 
loudened.  The  geographical  disabilities  which  affect  all 
Continental  nations,  and  from  which  insular  peoples  are 
free,  are  particularly  galling  to  a  high-spirited  race,  and 
foreign  inroads  have  become  more  discomposing  since  its 
patriotism  has  been  specially  inspired  by  associations  of 
the  soil.  That  sentiment,  as  we  have  seen,  first  took 
tangible  shape  under  the  stress  of  the  invasion  during  the 
Revolution.  In  the  epic  interval  between  the  first  chant 
of  the  Marseillaise  and  the  desperate  interjections  of 
General  Cambronne  at  the  last  charge  of  the  Old  Guard, 
the  armies  of  France  had  invaded  many  lands  between  the 
Tagus  and  the  Jordan ;  but  the  epoch  ended  as  it  began 
with  hostile  occupation  of  French  territory.  In  1815  and 
the  preceding  year  the  people  were  so  weary  of  war  that 
the  Allies,  entering  the  capital,  were  hailed  as  beneficent 
restorers  of  peace ;  so  the  spectacle  of  Parisians  cheering 
English  redcoats  camped  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne  and 
Cossacks  in  the  Champs  Elysees,  or  flocking  to  the  Opera 
to  see  the  Battle  of  Waterloo  danced  as  a  ballet,^  gave 

1  Letters  of  Harriet  Countess  Granville,  1810-46.  This  was  on  July 
30,1815.  The  previous  year  similar  scenes  were  witnessed.  "LeSAvril 
L.  chante  k  I'op^ra  en  prfeence  des  souverains  allies  les  couplets  suivans 
'  Vive  Guillaume,  et  scs  jjnerriers  vaillants  !  De  ce  royaume  il  sauve  les 
enfans  Par  sa  victoire,'  etc." — Montgaillard,  Oouvernement  Imperial, 
1814. 


250      THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  i 

strangers  the  impression  that  in  French  hearts  invasion 
was  not  a  grievous  sore.  But  this  was  only  the  reaction 
after  the  removal  of  a  crushing  burden  from  a  people  of 
buoyant  nature,  and  the  phantom  of  invasion  remained 
ever  before  the  French  from  the  time  when  the  youthful 
William  of  Prussia  first  entered  Paris  in  the  triumphal 
retinue  of  his  father,  who,  by  the  force  of  his  Allies,  thus 
commenced  the  revenge  of  Jena,  till  the  day,  an  aged 
man,  he  came  back  to  complete  it  single-handed,  having 
turned  his  father's  kingdom  into  an  empire  in  the  halls  of 
Versailles. 

It  was  the  vision  of  the  son  of  Frederick  William  and 
of  the  successors  of  Bliicher  within  their  gates  which 
prompted  the  Revolutionary  excesses  of  the  Parisians 
when  the  news  of  Sedan  arrived.  It  has  been  often  made 
a  reproach  to  them  that  on  the  4th  of  September,  1870, 
their  frenzy  was  directed  not  against  William  and  Bis- 
marck and  Moltke,  but  against  Louis  Napoleon  and  his 
dynasty,  thus  signifying  that  domestic  and  political  hate 
is  a  more  potent  impulse  in  France  than  patriotic  resist- 
ance to  a  foreign  foe.  The  prominence  on  that  day  of 
men  soon  to  direct  the  outrages  of  the  Commune,  and  the 
apparent  joy  of  the  populace  at  a  moment  when  it  ought 
to  have  been  grim  with  patriotic  sorrow,  justified  that 
reproach.  But  though  certain  Republican  leaders  might 
have  liked  defeat  to  destroy  the  Empire  better  than  vic- 
tory to  consolidate  it,  they  would  have  been  torn  to  pieces 
by  the  same  mob  which  clamoured  for  the  downfall  of 
the  dynasty  had  they  evinced  the  same  disposition  with 
Louis  Napoleon  on  his  triumphant  way  to  Berlin.  In 
this  as  in  every  other  consideration  of  the  French  char- 
acter, composed  as  it  is  of  contradictory  elements,  it  is 


CH.  IV  THE  PHANTOM  OF  INVASION  251 

impossible  to  generalise  ;  but  it  may  be  accepted  that  the 
presence  of  a  victorious  enemy  within  the  frontier  of  a 
country  already  acquainted  with  the  woes  of  invasion  is 
calculated  to  drive  its  sensitive  inhabitants  into  a  nervous 
attitude  of  recrimination  towards  its  rulers,  which  island 
dwellers  can  scarce  understand.  Since  the  renewal  of 
these  sorrows  in  the  war  with  Germany,  that  nervousness 
has  increased,  aggravated  by  depression  because  no  states- 
man has  yet  arisen  to  restore  France  to  its  former  posi- 
tion in  Europe. 

From  reproaching  ministers  with  being  incompetent  to 
recover  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  to  believing  them  capable  of 
suffering  another  invasion,  is  but  a  step  for  an  agitated 
public.  Thus  it  is  that  at  moments  of  disaster,  which 
ought  under  normal  conditions  to  unite  a  people  in  sup- 
porting its  government,  a  French  Minister  may,  for 
events  beyond  his  control,  be  treated  as  the  most  abject 
of  traitors.  When  M.  Jules  Ferry,  delivered  to  the  mob 
by  his  friends,  fell  never  to  rise  again  because  of  a  mili- 
tary reverse  in  Tonkin,  it  was  not  that  the  Parisians 
definitely  expected  to  see  the  Black  Flags  marching  down 
the  Champs  Elysees,  like  the  Prussians  in  1871 ;  but  to  a 
population  which  had  witnessed  that  spectacle  the  psycho- 
logical idea  of  defeat,  in  no  matter  what  part  of  the  world, 
presented  the  unreasonable  spectre  of  invasion.  To  the 
same  source  must  be  ascribed  the  tendency  of  the  French 
recklessly  to  accuse  their  public  men  of  being  the  agents 
of  foreign  powers.  One  day  it  was  M.  Ferry  said  to  be 
in  the  pay  of  Prince  Bismarck,  at  another  time  it  was  M. 
Clemenceau  charged  with  being  in  the  employ  of  Eng- 
land; and  critics  of  the  Russian  alliance  have  muttered 
that  this  or  that  politician  was  the  bondsman  of  the  Tsar : 


262  THE   REVOLUTION   AND  MODERN  FRANCE  bk.  i 

thus  continuing  the  tradition  of  the  Revolution,  when 
Republicans  used  to  charge  one  another,  as  well  as  the 
King's  party,  with  being  friends  of  the  foreigner,  when 
Jacobins  denounced  Girondins  for  being  subsidised  by 
Mr.  Pitt. 

"  Friend  of  the  foreigner  "  is  an  English  expression,  but 
it  has  had  no  such  sinister  signification  in  our  island  his- 
tory. From  long  before  the  French  Revolution  our  im- 
munity from  invasion  has  been  the  envy  of  Europe,  and 
whenever  our  relations  become  strained  with  a  continental 
power  the  desire  is  kindled  abroad  to  make  us  cede  our 
boast  of  centuries  and  submit  to  the  lot  of  other  lands 
which  periodically  see  their  fields  and  cities  ravaged  by 
alien  hordes.  Once  when  travelling  on  the  Mozambique 
Coast  I  met  with  a  family  of  Hollanders  to  whose  settle- 
ment was  wafted  sometimes,  from  below  the  tropic  of 
Capricorn,  an  echo  of  the  discord  between  their  kindred 
Boers  and  the  British,  and  one  of  them  said  to  me,  "  Con- 
fess, now,  that  you  English  have  never  forgiven  us  for 
burning  your  ships  in  the  Med  way."  The  patriotic 
Dutchwoman  was  not  quite  accurate.  Our  South  African 
troubles  have  not  been  due  to  the  infantile  training  of  our 
nomadic  speculators,  who  at  their  mothers'  knees  vowed 
to  wipe  out  the  outrage  of  Tromp  and  Ruyter.  But  it 
would  be  supremely  true  to  say  that  we  should  have 
cause  for  undying  resentment  towards  the  Power  which 
ever  succeeded  in  landing  a  hostile  force  on  our  shores ; 
for,  apart  from  the  material  and  momentary  harm,  such 
an  experience  would  alter  our  national  character,  substi- 
tuting a  nervous  temper  for  our  phlegmatic  sense  of 
security.  Even  at  times  when  invasion  has  seemed  im- 
minent the  panics  which  are  said  to  have  scared  us  did 


CH.  IV  PSYCHOLOGICAL  EFFECT  OF  INVASION  253 

not  greatly  affect  British  unconcern.  When  Napoleon 
was  planning  his  descent  on  our  coasts  our  Commander-in- 
Chief,  the  Duke  of  York,  inspecting  the  works  at  Dover 
and  Folkestone,  constructed  to  face  the  attack,  wrote  to 
the  notorious  Mrs.  Clarke  letters,  afterwards  brought  to 
light,^  in  which  he  described  the  view  of  the  French  camp 
on  the  opposite  heights  as  a  harmless  panorama.^  After 
that  peril  had  passed,  contemporary  chroniclers  relate 
that  the  disaster  to  our  troops  at  Walcheren  caused  less 
excitement  in  England  than  the  duel  it  provoked  between 
Mr.  Canning  and  Lord  Castlereagh  or  the  O.P.  riots  at 
Covent  Garden  —  though  Europe  was  in  a  blaze,  in  the 
year  of  Wagram  and  of  Talavera,^  when  no  land  but  ours 
was  free  from  the  ingress  of  devouring  armies. 

That  invasion  remains  an  imminent  alarm  to  France  is 
manifest  to  all  who  have  sojourned  in  that  country  since 
the  Franco-German  war  laid  open  the  frontier,  inviolate 
for  five-and-fifty  years.  That  interval  was  less  than  the 
span  of  life  of  many  an  inhabitant  of  the  Eastern  prov- 
inces, as  I  have  found  on  my  travels.  At  St.  Die,  which 
the  Treaty  of  Frankfort  made  a  frontier  toAvn,  the  old 
dean  of  the  cathedral  chapter  related  how  he  had  seen  in 
his  native  Vosges  the  two  invasions  which  ended  the  First 
and  Second  Empires.  Nearer  Paris  there  is  the  fortified 
city  of  Soissons,  where  the  elders,  who  survived  a  few 
years  ago,  had  agitated  memories  of  their  youth  and  old 
age.  Taken  and  retaken  by  Cossack  and  by  Prussian  in 
1814,  it  was  bombarded  again  in  1870,  so  that  the  antiq- 

^  Report  of  Committee  of  House  of  Commons,  appointed  January, 
1809,  to  investigate  the  conduct  of  H.R.H.,  the  Duke  of  York,  Comman- 
der-in-Chief, with  regard  to  promotions,  exchanges,  and  appointments  to 
commissions  in  tlie  army.  ^  1804.  s  i809. 


264  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 


uities  of  the  capital  of  Clovis  have  suffered ;  but  it  con- 
tains other  relics,  and  in  the  courtyard  of  an  inn  there  is 
a  pile  of  cannon-ball  left  by  the  Grand  Duke  of  Mecklen- 
burg as  a  reminder  of  a  debt  one  day  to  be  repaid.  Here, 
again,  is  the  hStel  of  a  wealthy  family  at  Reims  :  the 
daughter,  who  now  bears  an  historic  name,  when  she  en- 
tertauis  her  guests  calls  to  mind  that  her  first  experience 
as  a  girl  of  doing  the  honours  of  a  house  was  when  Prince 
Hohenlohe  took  up  his  quarters  in  her  home  after  Sedan, 
and  stipulated  that  she  or  her  mother  should  always  dine  at 
table  with  him.  Here  is  a  peaceful  chateau  in  the  Brie 
which  looks  as  though  nothing  had  disturbed  its  calm 
since  Mme.  de  Sevigne  saw  its  stately  walls  rising,  and 
Diderot  discoursed  in  its  salons  ;  but  the  modern  books  in 
tlie  old  library  are  mutilated,  and  out  of  Thiers'  Consulate 
and  Umpire  are  torn  the  pages  describing  the  battle  of  Jena, 
with  a  scrawl  to  attest  that  it  was  the  work  of  a  corporal 
of  a  Prussian  regiment  in  January,  1871. 

In  England  only  to  old  places  are  historical  souvenirs 
attached.  Those  which  Americans  like  to  venerate  are 
as  a  rule  older  than  the  emigrations  under  the  Stuarts  of 
the  first  British  settlers  who  crossed  the  Atlantic.  In 
France  modern  buildings  too  have  their  traditions, 
and  ancient  edifices  have  associations  dating,  not  from 
the  past  centuries  which  saw  them  reared,  but  from  the 
lifetime  of  contemporaries.  This  is  not  exclusively  due 
to  the  continental  situation  of  France,  for  in  Italy  the 
traveller  does  not  pause  to  consider  monuments  for  their 
recent  memories ;  the  interest  of  most  events  in  France 
in  the  last  hundred  years  is  connected  with  the  Revolu- 
tion and  its  sequences.  When  there  was  a  question  of 
demolishing  the  Malmaison,  a  Frenchman,  who  had  seen 


CH.  IV  THE  REMINISCENCES  OF  TWO  NATIONS  255 

not  a  few  national  vicissitudes,  said  to  me,  "Our  land 
unhappily  so  constantly  renews  its  places  of  historical 
association,  that  it  is  impossible  to  preserve  them  all." 
No  doubt  it  would  not  be  easy  to  find  in  England  a 
house  the  stones  of  which  thrill  the  imagination  because 
of  a  woman  who  lived  in  it  within  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  Mrs.  Hannah  More's  cottage  in  the  Mendips,  or  the 
home  of  Mrs.  Hemans  in  the  Vale  of  Clwyd,  in  spite  of 
the  chaster  merits  of  those  gifted  matrons,  can  be  regarded 
with  less  emotion  than  the  chateau  which  the  Citoyenne 
Bonaparte  bought  and  where  she  died  a  fallen  Empress. 

It  is  a  curious  thing  that  while  we  are  a  less  literary 
nation  than  the  French,  many  of  the  more  interesting 
reminiscences  of  our  elders  have  in  this  century  referred 
to  the  exploits  of  literature  rather  than  of  action.  "  Ah  ! 
did  you  once  see  Shelley  plain?"  asked  Mr.  Browning; 
while  Beranger,  "II  avait  petit  chapeau  avec  redingote 
grise.  ...  II  me  dit :  'Bonjour,  ma  chere! '  '  II  vous  a 
parle,  grandmere!  II  vous  aparle!'"  It  is  the  more  re- 
markable because  there  is  no  period  of  English  history  in 
which  our  men  of  action  showed  greater  merit  than  in  the 
years  succeeding  the  French  Revolution.  Yet,  though 
there  was  no  colossal  figure  like  that  of  Napoleon  to 
overshadow  our  warriors,  we  have  neglected  the  memory 
of  heroes  not  less  valiant  than  Marceau  and  Hoche,  than 
Kleber  and  Massena,  of  whom  every  Frenchman  knows 
the  fame.  The  victors  of  Trafalgar  and  of  Waterloo  we 
remember  ;  and  Sir  John  Moore  we  know,  because  a  poet 
of  a  single  song  sang  him  an  immortal  dirge.  But  if  the 
name  of  Sidney  Smith  be  spoken  in  a  company  of  English- 
men, its  sound  evokes  the  quips  of  the  reverend  jester  of 
the  Whigs,  and  not  the  feats  of  the  glorious  defender 


25G     THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE    bk.  x 

of  St.  Jean  d'Acre,  who  arrested  Bonaparte's  gigantic 
scheme  of  Eastern  conquest,  and  who,  in  the  Emperor's 
opinion,  was  a  more  fatal  obstacle  to  his  ambition  than 
either  Nelson  or  Wellington. 

Thus  because  our  wars  were  waged  beyond  the  seas, 
and  because  Great  Britain  had  done  with  revolution 
when  Charles  Edward  forlornly  marched  to  Derby  and 
back,  the  liveliest  recollections  of  the  most  aged  who 
survived  to  the  lifetime  of  men  of  our  day  were  mild 
and  commonplace  compared  with  those  of  their  neigh- 
bours in  France.  The  oldest  people  we  have  ever  known 
in  our  childhood  had  perhaps  seen  George  III.  bathing 
at  Weymouth,  or  watched  a  press-gang  at  work ;  while 
those  of  the  next  generation  remembered  the  talk  about 
Mr.  Perceval's  murder,  or  heard  the  bells  for  Princess 
Charlotte's  marriage.  While  such  pale,  isolated  memo- 
ries were  being  impressed  on  young  English  minds  of 
th6se  days,  how  crowded  and  how  vivid  were  the  images 
which  passed  before  French  eyes :  the  tragic  figure  of  Ma- 
rie Antoinette,  the  farewell  embrace  of  a  father  dragged 
to  the  guillotine ;  the  return  of  Napoleon  from  Elba 
between  two  triumphal  entries  of  the  Allies  in  Paris. 
For  six-and-twenty  years  France  was  full  of  tumult, 
men's  voices  outdinned  by  the  crash  of  arms  and  the 
sound  of  trumpet.  At  first  the  streets  and  the  fields 
were  stained  with  French  blood  shed  by  French  hands, 
but  they  presently  were  turned  against  the  enemies  of 
France ;  and  the  clouds  of  cannon  smoke,  which  suc- 
ceeded those  of  incendiary  flames,  moved  beyond  the 
frontiers,  within  which  for  a  decade  and  a  half  all  the 
marchings  and  the  counter-marchings  were  of  the  armies 
of  France.     Sometimes  in  the  train  of  their  commander 


CH.  IV  THE  RESULTS  OF  THE  REVOLUTION  257 

there  came  a  brave  show  worth  seeing,  even  if  it  did  not 
console  for  the  tribute  of  manhood  it  cost.  Sometimes 
the  roads  near  the  capital  were  encumbered  with  the 
spoils  of  the  galleries  of  Europe  :  one  day  the  Pope  of 
Rome  came  a  captive  visitor  to  the  new  Charlemagne ; 
later  a  daughter  of  the  Caesars  was  sent  as  a  hymeneal 
hostage  to  the  soldier  of  the  Revolution  who  taught  the 
last  Emperor  of  the  West  that  the  original  meaning  of 
"Imperator"  was  "victorious  general  of  the  republic." 
After  that  the  tattered  relics  of  the  retreat  from  Moscow 
presaged  the  coming  end  of  abnormal  experience  and 
glory.  But  in  less  than  a  generation  a  new  France  had 
been  constructed  on  the  wrecked  foundations  of  the 
old  edifice,  and  the  people  had  passed  through  such  a 
series  of  emotions,  had  suffered  such  vicissitudes,  and 
had  witnessed  such  amazing  scenes,  that  they  and  the 
generation  procreated  by  them  during  the  years  of  unrest 
formed  a  new  nation.  It  retained  part  of  its  heritage  of 
old  Gallic  civilisation  as  well  as  many  of  the  virtues  and 
defects  of  the  race  ;  but  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  turmoil 
and  tension  had  developed  new  qualities  which  made 
them  the  people  the  least  adapted  in  the  world  to  be  gov- 
erned under  constitutions  improvised  on  the  venerable 
British  model. 

Here,  then,  we  see  the  chief  effects  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution on  modern  France  after  a  hundred  years.  There 
is  the  great  tangible  result,  the  machine  of  administrative 
government  constructed  by  Napoleon  ;  and  there  is  the 
psychological  or  moral  result  of  a  people  which  has  never 
yet  found  a  political  government  to  soothe  and  weld 
together  the  elements  unsettled  by  the  great  upheaval. 
For  the  rest,  the  Revolution  is  not  responsible  for  half  of 


258  THE  REVOLUTION  AND  MODERN  FRANCE         bk.  i 

the  good  or  of  the  evil  attributed  to  it.  It  did  not 
hasten  one  moment  the  invention  of  steam  power  or  the 
application  of  electricity  which  have  been  the  real  revo- 
lutionary forces  of  the  world  in  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  the  consequences  of  which  the  Ancient  Regime  could 
not  have  withstood.  While  it  abolished  certain  intoler- 
able grievances  which  bore  most  harshly  on  the  humble, 
it  did  not  redress  the  everlasting  conflict  between  rich 
and  poor.  There  are  pages  of  Rousseau,  treating  of  ine- 
quality, among  the  most  eloquent  of  his  writings  which 
conduced  to  the  Revolution,  and  they  describe  the  lot  of 
the  poor  in  our  time  or  perhaps  it  might  be  said,  at  any 
period  of  the  world's  history.  At  all  events,  the  French 
Revolution  has  done  nothing  to  help  the  solutions  of  the 
problems  which  face  humanity  a  century  after  its  con- 
summation ;  and  it  might  never  have  occurred,  for  any 
effect  it  has  had  on  the  relations  of  capital  and  labour, 
on  the  progress  of  Socialism,  or  on  the  power  of  Plu- 
tocracy. The  best  that  can  be  said  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution is  that  just  when  civilisation  was  on  the  point  of 
making  history  colourless  it  burst  forth  and  produced  for 
the  student  and  the  artist  a  collection  of  pictures  and 
documents  thrilling  and  pathetic,  grandiose  and  revolt- 
ing, such  as  no  epoch  of  antiquity  or  of  modern  times 
has  supplied.  But  to  provide  intellectual  pleasure  for 
the  cultivated  it  was  hardly  worth  while  that  millions  of 
the  human  race  should  have  lamentably  perished  before 
their  term. 


BOOK  II 

THE  CONSTITUTION  AND  THE  CHIEF  OF 
THE  STATE 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    CONSTITUTION 

French  jurists  and  historians  have  expressed  admira- 
tion at  the  conduct  of  the  Parliamentary  Convention 
which  arranged  the  transmission  of  the  crown  after  the 
English  Revolution  of  1688.  The  king  was  in  flight,  a 
foreign  invasion  was  imminent,  and  this  was  the  moment 
chosen  by  the  Lords  and  the  Commons  to  display  the 
national  reverence  for  law  and  prescription  by  tranquilly 
discussing  precedents  afforded  by  the  deposition  of 
Richard  II.  and  of  Edward  II. ;  till  at  last  the  venerable 
Maynard,  who  had  witnessed  all  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
century,  lost  patience  and  exclaimed  :  "  A  man  in  a 
revolution,  resolving  to  do  nothing  which  is  not  strictly 
according  to  established  form,  resembles  a  man  who  has 
lost  himself  in  the  wilderness,  and  who  stands  crying, 
'Where  is  the  king's  highway?  I  will  walk  nowhere 
but  on  the  king's  highway.'"^ 

An  eminent  French  authority  *  finds  a  parallel  and  a 
contrast  with  this  incident  in  the  proceedings  of  the 
Corps  Legislatif,  in  1815,  after  Waterloo.  The  surround- 
ing circumstances  were  graver.     Bliicher  was  at  the  gates 

1  Macaulay,  History  of  England,  c.  xi. 
'  E.  Boutmy,  JStudes  de  Droit  constitutionnel. 
261 


262  THE  FRENCH  CONSTITUTION  bk.  ii 

of  Paris  ;  the  official  Moniteur  announced  that  the  capital 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Allies  ;  and  the  representative 
Chamber,  instead  of  considering  the  dangers  menacing 
the  country,  discussed  with  animation  a  Declaration  of 
Rights, — presented  by  Garat,  the  old  Minister  of  the 
Convention  who  announced  the  death-sentence  to  Louis 
XVI.,  —  defining,  in  philosophic  phrase,  sovereignty  of  the 
people  and  liberty  of  the  individual.  An  unphilosophic 
member  who  came  to  interrupt  the  deliberation  with  the 
announcement  that  the  English  had  arrived,  was  scorn- 
fully silenced  ;  and  while  the  Allies  were  concluding  the 
capitulation,  the  Chamber,  having  completed  its  Declara- 
tion of  Rights  and  of  principles,  proceeded  to  vote  with 
academic  zeal  fifty  articles  of  the  new  Constitution,  which 
was  not  accepted  by  Louis  XVIII. 

The  respective  methods  of  these  two  bodies  mark  both 
the  national  characteristic  of  the  peoples  they  represented 
and  the  attendant  circumstances  of  the  Revolutions  in  the 
two  countries.  England  had  the  advantage  of  undergoing 
her  decisive  political  crises,  not  only  free  from  the  pressure 
of  alien  interference, — for  Ireland,  which  was  invaded  by 
the  foreigner,  was  more  distant  from  the  capital  than 
France  or  the  Low  Countries,  —  but  also  in  the  century 
before  the  age  of  Voltaire  had  imbued  all  Europe  with  its 
rationalism,  at  a  time  when  even  in  France  the  tendency 
in  matter  of  politics,  as  well  as  of  science  and  theology, 
was  to  recognise  authority  and  to  register  precedents. 
Had  the  English  Revolutions  been  deferred,  the  Bill  of 
Rights  might  have  been  a  more  symmetrical  document,^ 

1  "11  n'y  a  dans  le  Bill  des  Droits  ni  ordre  ni  plan  d'ensemble.  Les 
13  articles  qui  le  composent  se  suivent  comme  an  hasard.  Cela  est  tout 
k  fait  contraire  k  I'id^e  que  nous  nous  faisons  des  actes  issus  d'une  situa- 
tion r^volutionnaire  "  (Boutmy). 


CH.  I  CONSTITUTION  OF  THE  THIRD  REPUBLIC  263 

more  sonorously  phrased,  but  it  would  not  have  been  an 
enduring  possession. 

The  Constitution  under  which  the  last  generation  of  the 
nineteenth  century  has  lived  in  France  is  distinguished 
from  others  which  preceded  it  in  that  it  contains  no 
declaration  of  principle,  no  philosophic  or  humanitarian 
pretension.  It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  absence 
of  axioms  similar  to  those  found  in  the  Declaration  of  the 
Rights  of  Man,  or  in  the  Constitution  of  1848,  has  given 
it  a  durability  not  enjoyed  by  the  regimes  initiated  by 
those  instruments.  It  is,  however,  certain  that  the  cir- 
cumstances which  moved  the  National  Assembly  to  confine 
itself  to  the  organization  of  the  public  powers  without 
theoretical  dissertations  on  doctrine,  have,  in  their  develop- 
ment, preserved  the  Constitution  of  1875,  which  has  lasted 
to  the  end  of  the  century  with  little  modification.  The 
Constitution  of  the  Third  Republic  owes  its  origin,  as  it 
owes  its  duration,  to  the  weakness  of  purpose  and  the 
dissensions  of  the  monarchical  parties.  The  National 
Assembly  which  established  the  Republic  was  not  a 
republican  body.  The  majority  were  monarchical,  but 
the  Legitimists,  Orleanists,  and  Bonapartists  composing  it 
failed  to  agree  ;  and  the  country  being  weary  of  an 
avowedly  provisional  state  of  things,  the  necessity  was 
forced  upon  the  unenthusiastic  Assembly  ^  of  confirming 
Marshal  MacMahon  as  Chief  of  the  State,  with  a  Repub- 

1  The  reporter  of  the  Commission  which  had  examined  the  Bill  for  the 
"  Organisation  des  pouvoirs  publics,"  M.  de  Ventavon,  described  the  situa- 
tion very  well:  "II  est  ditKcile  dans  la  situation  actuelle  des  esprits  de 
fonder  des  institutions  definitives.  Tous  les  gouvemements  qui  se  sont 
succfid^s  en  France  y  ont  laiss4  des  partisans,  et  ces  partisans  sont  repr^- 
sentfe  dans  I'Assembl^e  Nationale.  Comment  grouper  une  niajoritd  pour 
etablir  un  gouvernement  qui  doit  etre  le  triomphe  exclusif  d'un  parti?" 
(Ass.  Nat,  Stance  du  21  Janvier,  1875.) 


264  THE  FRENCH  CONSTITUTION  bk.  n 

lican  constitution  to  guarantee  the  Septennate.  Hence 
the  debates  which  preluded  the  passing  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Law  were  unique  in  their  character  ;  for  little  as 
they  resembled  discussions  in  the  English  legislature  on 
constitutional  changes,  with  their  grave  references  to 
liistorical  precedents,^  they  departed  also  from  French 
tradition  in  that  they  were  conducted  without  classical 
allusion  and  without  didactic  theorising.  We  are  all  famil- 
iar with  the  pedantic  extravagances  of  the  orators  of  the 
Convention,  faintly  echoed  by  those  who  aided  Lamartine 
in  making  the  Constitution  of  1848  ;  but  the  National 
Assembly  reared  the  Third  Republic  without  any  inspira- 
tion from  Greek  and  Latin  antiquity,  without  any  proofs 
from  the  Encyclopaedists.  M.  Jules  Favre  refrained 
from  comparing  himself  with  Thrasybulus,  and  the  re- 
actionary composition  of  the  "  Commission  des  Trente  "  * 
did  not  produce  the  obvious  allusion  to  the  Thirty 
Tyrants.  The  regicide  date  of  the  21st  of  January, 
though  it  raised  the  ire  of  aged  Royalists  whose  fathers 
had  served  Louis  XVI.,  failed  to  call  forth  from  Repub- 
licans the  inapt  but  once  inevitable  reference  to  Marcus 
Brutus  ;  and  M.  Jules  Simon  argued  with  sound  philoso- 
phy, without  one  specious  quotation  from  the  philoso- 
phers of  the  last  century. 

In  an  enactment  passed  under  such  conflicting  circum- 
stances the  commonplaces  of  revolutionary  terminology 
could  no  more  find  a  place  than  declarations  in  favour 
of  limited  monarchy  or  of  plebiscitary  dictatorship.     The 

1  One  or  two  speakers,  for  instance  M.  Dufaure,  referred  to  historical 
precedents,  but  rather  as  warnings  than  as  models  of  conduct. 

*  The  Commission  des  Trente,  nominated  at  the  end  of  1873  to  prepare 
the  constitutional  lews,  contained  scarcely  any  Republicans  among  its 
thirty  members. 


CH.  I  GENESIS  OF  CONSTITUTION  OF  1875  265 

keynote  to  the  situation  is  given  in  the  concluding  pro- 
tests of  the  extreme  Legitimists  on  the  day  the  new- 
Constitution  was  voted  by  the  National  Assembly.^ 
They  vainly  besought  the  Broglies  and  the  Haussonvilles 
to  hesitate  before  joining  with  Republicans  of  every 
shade,  not  only  with  Leon  Say  and  Dufaure,  but  with 
Gambetta  and  Jules  Favre,  in  founding  the  Republic. 
But  the  Orleanists  justified  their  transaction  with  the 
Left  Centre  by  the  belief  that  the  Conservative  Republic 
would  be  the  safest  halting-place,  till  abdication  or  death 
took  the  Comte  de  Chambord  out  of  the  way  of  the 
foundation  of  a  constitutional  monarchy ;  while  the 
members  of  the  Extreme  Left  knew  that  any  form  of 
Republic,  once  established,  was  likely  to  become  their 
possession  in  the  face  of  monarchical  dissensions.  Thus 
by  a  compromise,  regarded  as  provisional  by  many  of  its 
supporters,  voted  without  phrases  and  without  enthusi- 
asm, was  founded  the  regime  which  has  proved  more 
durable  than  any  other  set  up  in  France  since  the  Ancient 
Monarchy  succumbed  on  the  10th  of  August,  1792. 

A  constitution  thus  brought  into  being  presents  no 
scientific  interest,  such  as  that  which  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  offers.  It  is  chiefly  interesting  as  the 
scheme  of  government  under  which  a  great  people  has 
managed  to  live  for  a  certain  number  of  years.  Even 
decorated  with  a  preamble  of  pretentious  maxims  like 
that  prefixed  to  the  Constitution  of  1848,  it  would  not 
have  altered  the  fact  that,  though  France  is  more  exer- 
cised in  the  practice  of  constitution-making  than  any 
other  civilised  nation,  it  has  never  seriously  applied  itself 
to  the  scientific  study  of  constitutional  law.  It  has  no 
1  Ass.  Nat,  Stance  du  25  F^vrier,  1876. 


266  THE  FRENCH  CONSTITUTION  uk.  ii 

classical  literature  on  the  subject,  and  since  the  Revolu- 
tion its  Faculties  of  Law  have  made  but  faint  attempts  to 
give  instruction  in  it,^  the  great  jurists  not  being  at- 
tracted to  a  subject  made  barren  in  their  nation  by  recur- 
ring political  vicissitude.  The  existence  of  a  treatise  like 
Tocqueville's  BSmocratie  en  AmSrique  displays  at  once  the 
aptitude  of  the  French  genius  to  deal  with  constitutional 
problems,  and  its  compulsion  to  turn  to  other  countries  to 
study  them. 

It  would  serve,  therefore,  no  useful  purpose  to  institute 
a  comparison  between  the  French,  the  English,  and  the 
American  conceptions  of  a  constitution.  We  might  take, 
for  instance,  the  Constitution  of  1848,  and  point  out  how 
this  imperative  act  of  the  nation,  creating  out  of  noth- 
ing an  organised  hierarchy,  differs,  on  the  one  hand, 
from  the  English  Constitution  founded  on  a  series  of 
treaties  made  during  the  course  of  ages  between  certain 
ancient  corporations,  the  immemorial  depositaries  of  pub- 
lic powers ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  differs  from  the 
Federal  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  with  its  distinct 
and  sovereign  bodies  politic,  which  unite  to  create  and  to 
limit  the  State.  We  might  recognise  in  all  this  the  in- 
fluence of  national  characteristic  —  of  the  English  love 
for  tradition  and  informal  precedent,  of  the  French  ten- 
dency towards  abstract  rationalism,  with  its  refined  classi- 
fications and  its  precise  formulas.  We  might  further 
illustrate  our  theme  by  a  contrast  between  the  origins  of 
the  American  and  the  French  democracy  —  the  former, 
without  a  past,  never  having  been  mixed  with  any 
other  element,  establishing  its  regime  without  strife  and 

1  A  chair  of  constitutional  law  was  created  at  Paris  for  Rossi  in  1835, 
but  was  abolished  in  1851,  and  was  revived  only  in  1879  (Boutmy). 


CH.  I  INSTABILITY  OF  FRENCH  CONSTITUTIONS  267 

without  the  destruction  of  institutions  ;  the  latter,  the  final 
transformation  of  an  aged  and  complex  society  effected 
by  means  of  a  struggle,  violent,  yet  not  wholly  conclusive. 

But  while  we  are  engaged  on  these  instructive  parallels, 
Louis  Bonaparte  comes  along,  with  no  other  merit  to  rec- 
ommend him  than  the  bearing  of  the  name  of  one  who, 
half  a  century  before,  had  made  short  work  of  constitu- 
tions and  their  makers ;  so  before  we  have  time  to  formu- 
late our  conclusions,  the  Sovereignty  of  the  People  ex- 
presses itself  in  a  manner  repugnant  to  philosophers,  and 
by  the  voice  of  the  plebiscite  ratifies  the  Coup  d'Etat  of 
December,  as  it  had  ratified  that  of  the  18  Brumaire,  thus 
deciding  to  dispense  with  constitutional  government  for 
a  season. 

A  regime  will  have  had  to  last  half  a  century  without 
revolution  before  the  French  will  begin  to  believe  in  the 
durability  of  their  constitutions,  and  before  jurists  can 
make  them  the  subject  of  profitable  examination.  Sixty 
years  ago,  when  the  Monarchy  of  July  gave  promise  of 
establishing  a  permanent  form  of  government  in  France, 
and  the  prospects  of  the  Orleans  dynasty  seemed  assured, 
Tocqueville,  in  the  midst  of  his  studies  of  American  de- 
mocracy, could  not  refrain  from  sounding  a  note  of 
scepticism.  He  was  commenting  upon  the  somewhat 
ironical  theory  of  the  immutability  of  the  French  Consti- 
tution, and  illustrated  it  by  quoting  the  decree  of  Chan- 
cellor Maupeou  under  Louis  XV.,  which  provided  that 
the  new  tribunal  of  judges  instituted  by  it  should  be  ir- 
removable, like  their  predecessors,  who  had  just  been 
swept  away.^  This  tradition  of  immutability  has  been 
maintained,  so  that  in  the  intervals  of  revolutions  con- 
^  La  Democratie  en  Ameriqiie,  vol.  i.  note  L. 


268  THE  FRENCH  CONSTITUTION  bk.  u 

stitutional  changes  can  only  be  effected  by  the  deliberate 
setting  in  motion  of  an  elaborate  and  special  machinery.^ 
Here  French  and  English  ideas  and  practice  are  entirely 
opposed.  We  have  no  revolutions  in  our  country,  but 
we  possess  no  legal  safeguards  against  hasty  amend- 
ments of  the  Constitution.  We  have  no  cognisance  of 
constituent  assemblies  as  distinct  from  legislative  assem- 
blies. Each  succeeding  Parliament  is  competent  to  act 
in  either  capacity,  and  the  same  procedure  with  which 
bankruptcy  or  cattle-plague  is  regulated  would  suffice 
to  alter  the  succession  to  the  Crown.  That  the  working 
of  this  system,  even  with  a  wide  franchise,  does  not 
result  in  either  inordinate  constitutional  changes,  or 
collisions  between  the  Estates  of  the  Realm,  is  doubtless 
largely  due  to  national  character ;  but  it  is  also  due  to 
the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  who  have  always  refrained 

1  Revision :  —  The  doctrine  was  laid  down  in  1884  that,  while  it  was 
impossible  to  limit  the  powers  of  a  revisioual  Congress  by  any  legal  sanc- 
tion, it  was  practicable  to  place  a  de  facto  limitation  on  the  scope  of  their 
deliberations,  by  a  moral  engagement  taken  by  the  majority  in  each 
Chamber  not  to  discuss  any  articles  of  the  Constitution  which  had  not 
been  formally  specified  in  advance.  There  is  no  doubt  that  Art.  8  of  the 
Constitutional  Law  of  February  25,  1875,  in  making  the  meeting  of  a 
revisional  assembly  depend  on  a  double  resolution  passed  previously  by 
each  of  the  two  Chambers,  intended  that  both  branches  of  the  Legislature 
should  be  in  accord,  both  on  the  necessity  of  a  revision,  and  on  the  nature 
of  the  questions  to  be  decided.  In  1884  the  Prime  Minister,  M.  Ferry, 
and  the  Minister  of  Justice,  M.  Martin  Feuill6e,  in  making  their  proposals 
for  Revision,  laid  down  the  axiom,  which  was  not  serioasly  questioned, 
that  there  could  be  no  convocation  of  the  National  Assembly  unless  the 
resolutions  of  the  two  Chambers  were  identical  in  their  general  scope. 
It  is  clear  that  this  position  detracts  from  the  importance  of  a  constituent 
Congress,  but  there  is  no  escaping  from  the  dilemma  ;  so  long  as  the  con- 
sent of  the  two  Houses  is  required  for  the  meeting  of  the  Congress,  either 
its  proceedings  must  be  previously  agreed  upon,  the  Congress  becoming 
simply  a  registering  assembly,  or  the  proceedings  are  not  agreed  upon 
and  no  Congress  can  take  place. 


CH.  I  ORDER  OF  STUDYING  QUESTIONS  269 

from  substituting  a  written  constitution  for  the  scattered 
laws  and  traditions  which  order  the  government  of  the 
kingdom.  Drawn  up  in  the  form  of  a  statute,  it  would 
present  perpetual  temptation  to  reformers,  even  though 
safeguarded  by  precautions,  with  which  all  commimities, 
whether  prone  to  change  or  not,  find  it  necessary  to 
protect  a  written  constitution. 

These  considerations  on  the  instability  of  the  French 
Constitution  might  seem  to  indicate  that  we  should  not 
at  the  outset  examine  those  institutions  which  during 
the  last  century  have  been  repeatedly  subject  to  change, 
but  should  turn  first  to  those  which,  having  survived 
revolutions,  may  be  regarded  as  permanently  established. 

Political  prediction  is  always  unsafe,  but  a  prophet 
would  not  be  considered  rash  who  foretold  that  in  Eng- 
land twenty  years  hence  the  Crown,  with  its  attributes, 
will  remain  unchanged,  but  that  local  administration 
will  have  undergone  serious  modifications.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  France  no  one  would  predict  the  reform  or  the 
abolition  of  the  communal  system  in  that  period  ;  while 
few  are  confident  that  the  supreme  executive  power  will 
be  then  vested  in  a  President  of  a  Parliamentary  Repub- 
lic. This  being  so,  the  question  arises  whether  it  would 
not  be  better  to  work  upwards,  studying  Municipal  and 
Departmental  organisation  before  dealing  with  the  Exec- 
utive and  the  Legislature.  That  plan  has  its  advantages, 
and  was  employed  by  Tocqueville  in  his  description  of 
the  system  of  the  United  States ;  but  he  points  out 
that,  while  in  America  the  commune  lends  its  function- 
aries to  the  Government,  in  centralised  France  the  Gov- 
ernment imposes  its  functionaries  on  the  commune,^  and 
1  La  Democratic  en  Ameriquc,  vol.  i.  c.  5. 


270  THE  FRENCH  CONSTITUTION  bk.  n 

little  progress  has  been  made  since  in  the  direction  of 
decentralisation.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  in  order  to 
understand  the  organisation  of  the  commune  and  of  the 
department,  to  study  the  machinery  of  the  legislature 
and  of  the  central  Government  from  which  it  depends. 


CHAPTER  n 


THE    CHIEF   OF   THE   STATE  ^ 


Few  subjects  are  more  attractive  to  the  student  of 
modern  democracy  than  the  various  conceptions  which 
the  French  people  have  held  in  the  last  hundred  years  of 
the  attributes  of  a  chief  of  the  Executive.  They  have 
not  succeeded  one  another  with  the  gradual  development 
of  evolution ;  nor  have  they  followed  the  regular  course 
of  periodic  revolution  and  reaction.  They  have  to  be 
referred  to  a  number  of  causes.  The  alleged  instability 
of  the  national  character  is  not  sufficient  to  account  for 
the  history  of  the  last  century  in  France.  Account  has 
also  to  be  taken  of  the  premature  suddenness  of  the  great 
emancipation ;  of  the  personality  of  the  master  into  whose 
arms  France  threw  herself,  not  knowing  what  to  do  with 

1  The  scientific  order  of  examining  the  component  parts  of  the  French 
Constitution  would  be  (1)  the  Constituent,  (2)  the  Legislative,  and  (3)  the 
Executive  Powers,  but  it  will  be  more  convenient  to  depart  from  it,  and 
before  examining  the  Legislative  power  to  consider  the  functions  and  the 
position  of  the  chief  of  the  Executive  under  the  Kepublic.  The  Presi- 
dent does  not  unite  in  his  person  all  the  executive  attributes  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, which  he  shares  with  his  ministers  ;  but  they,  though  not  all 
Senators  or  Deputies,  are  so  dependent  on  the  changing  caprice  of  the 
Lower  Chamber,  that  they  are  in  practice  a  temporary  committee  of  the 
Legislature,  so  that  it  will  be  best  to  treat  of  them  under  Parliament. 

271 


272  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  »k.  ii 

her  new  liberty,  who  made  the  succession  difficult  for 
ordinary  mortals ;  of  the  peculiar  influence  that  exterior 
relations  have  constantly  had  on  the  domestic  destinies  of 
the  country.  Only  thus  is  it  possible  to  understand  how 
it  was  the  same  nation  which,  ten  years  after  publishing 
its  Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  handed  them  all 
over  to  the  soldier  whom  it  made  Emperor,  whose  con- 
sistent policy  was  a  complete  negation  of  each  article 
of  that  famous  document ;  which,  having  submitted 
with  pride  to  the  glorious  tyranny  of  a  military  dicta- 
tor, accepted  as  his  successors  from  the  hands  of  his 
foreign  conquerors  the  unwarlike  heirs  of  the  regime, 
the  upsetting  of  which  had  cost  Europe  a  quarter  of  a 
century  of  convulsion ;  which,  half  a  generation  later, 
exchanged  its  belated  exponents  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings  for  a  statutory  monarchy  after  the  British  model ; 
and  wearying  of  it  wandered  back  into  the  wastes  of 
doctrinaire  revolution,  investing  itself  there  with  uni- 
versal suffrage,  which  it  forthwith  confided  to  the 
guardianship  of  Louis  Napoleon  to  form  the  anomalous 
foundation  of  the  anomalous  autocracy  established  by 
him. 

The  examination  of  these  phenomena,  of  deep  interest 
to  the  philosophic  historian,  has  no  place  in  a  work  deal- 
ing with  the  actual  institutions  of  France.  The  nomina- 
tion of  Bonaparte  to  the  Consulate,  by  the  remnant  of  the 
Anciens  and  the  Cinq  Cents,  has  no  more  connection  with 
the  manner  in  which  M.  Carnot  or  M.  Faure  was  chosen 
to  the  Presidency  of  the  Republic,  than  has  the  election 
of  Hugues  Capet  as  King  by  the  nobles  and  prelates  of 
the  Duchy  of  France,  save  in  the  sense  that  every  politi- 
cal event  of  this  century  depends  on  the  Revolution,  and 


OH.  n  VICISSITUDES  OF  FRENCH  EXECUTIVE  273 

on  the  subsequent  reconstruction  of  the  country  by  Napo- 
leon. 

In  considering  the  position  and  attributes  of  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic,  we  have  not  therefore  to  investigate 
an  hierarchic  line  even  of  the  moderate  length  of  that 
of  the  Presidents  of  the  United  States.  The  defeat  of 
Sedan,  and  the  consequent  overthrow  of  the  Second 
Empire,  make  1870  a  date  as  indicative  of  a  new  order 
of  things  in  France  as  1792  or  1848.  A  new  Govern- 
ment had  to  be  created  out  of  nothing  amid  circum- 
stances of  peculiar  hardship.  The  Government  of  the 
4th  of  September  was  only  a  Committee  of  National 
Defence ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  capitulation  of  Paris 
that  the  armistice  gave  the  opportunity  for  the  election 
of  a  National  Assembly.  The  first  act  of  that  body  on 
meeting  at  Bordeaux  was  unanimously^  to  declare  M. 
Thiers  "  Chief  of  the  Executive  of  the  French  Repub- 
lic." By  his  investiture  with  that  title,  and  by  its 
use  in  the  preliminaries  of  peace,  signed  at  Versailles 
the  following  week,  the  Third  Republic  was  consecrated 
by  the  voice  of  the  people.  If  the  name  given  to  it  of 
a  "  Republic  without  Republicans "  was  an  exaggera- 
tion, it  is  true  that  the  National  Assembly  elected  by 
universal  suffrage  was  an  anti-Republican  body,  for  no 
French  Legislature  of  the  century  had  included  so  many 
men  of  rank  and  fortune.  A  great  majority  of  its  mem- 
bers were  of  the  two  sections  of  the  Monarchical  party, 
the  Imperialists  being  discredited  by  the  war,  while  the 
prolongation  of  the  struggle  by  Gambetta's  heroic  per- 
sistence, and  the  menace  of  Revolution  in  Paris,  covered 

1  February  17,  1871.  The  Assembly  was  so  nearly  unanimous  that  a 
division  was  not  called  for. 


274  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE   STATE  bk.  n 

Republicanism  with  unpopularity  in  the  country,  which 
the  unpatriotic  excesses  of  the  Commune  were  soon  to 
invigorate. 

A  year  after  Sedan  the  Assembly  passed  a  law  con- 
ferring on  the  Chief  of  the  Executive  the  title  of  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic.^  M.  Thiers  continued  to  be  a 
member  of  the  National  Assembly,  and  sometimes  took 
part  in  its  debates.  It  was  not  prepared  to  follow  the 
old  Minister  of  Louis  Philippe  in  his  gradual  but  defi- 
nite adoption  of  the  Republican  form  of  government. 
Gambetta's  famous  speech  ^  at  Grenoble,  in  which  he 
declared  that  a  new  social  stratum  was  about  to  take 
possession  of  political  power,  alarmed  Moderates  as  well 
as  extreme  Reactionaries,  and  just  when  the  German 
army  of  occupation  was  withdrawn  before  the  stipu- 
lated time,  owing  to  the  speedy  payment  of  the  war 
indemnity  by  the  patriotic  energy  of  M.  Thiers,  his 
Government  was  defeated  in  the  Assembly  after  a 
speech  he  had  made  in  its  support.  The  President 
forthwith  tendered  his  resignation,^  although  a  law  had 
been  passed,*  in  consequence  of  his  previous  threat  to 
resign,  substituting  ministerial  for  presidential  responsi- 

^  The  law  was  passed  by  a  majority  of  491  to  94,  Gambetta  and  one 
or  two  Radicals,  who  wanted  an  appeal  to  the  country,  voting  in  the 
minority,  which  was  generally  composed  of  extreme  Monarchists  (Annales 
de  VAss.  Nat.  i.  6). 

2  September  26,  1872,  "Les  nouvelles  couches." 

8  May  24,  1873. 

*  March  13,  1873.  Previous  to  this  the  President  had  the  right  to  take 
part  in  debates.  This  law  enacted  that  he  could  only  be  heard  after  giving 
notice  to  the  President  of  the  Chamber,  and  that  no  debate  could  take 
place  during  the  sitting  in  which  he  had  thus  taken  part.  The  law  created 
no  precedent  for  M.  Thiers'  successors,  and  its  only  importance  was  in 
laying  down  the  principle  that  no  parliamentary  assembly  could  deliberate 
freely  in  the  presence  of  the  Chief  of  the  Executive. 


M.   THIERS  275 


bility  in  the  case  of  collisions  between  the  Chief  of  the 
State  and  the  Assembly.  But  the  majority  did  not  ask 
M.  Thiers  this  time  to  reconsider  his  decision,  and  with 
unbecoming  haste  elected  and  proclaimed  on  the  spot 
Marshal  MacMahon  President  of  the  French  Republic. 
The  aged  statesman  may  have  committed  errors  ;  per- 
sonal ambition  may  have  been  a  motive  for  his  adhe- 
sion to  the  principle  of  a  Republic  ;  the  consciousness 
of  the  value  of  his  services  to  his  country  may  have 
unduly  filled  him  with  the  idea  that  he  was  indispensa- 
ble to  its  government ;  the  Reactionaries  may  have  hon- 
estly believed  that  his  adoption  of  the  Republic  would 
not  save  it  from  the  hands  of  those  whose  Republican- 
ism was  that  of  the  Commune  ;  ^  nevertheless,  in  the 
eyes  of  Europe,  the  curt  dismissal  of  the  venerable  Lib- 
erator of  the  Territory  was  an  act  of  wanton  ingratitude, 
prejudicial  to  France  as  seeming  to  be  a  token  of  national 
inconstancy. 2  Its  only  justification  would  have  been  the 
success  of  the  majority  in  founding  a  stable  government 
of  monarchical  form.     The  sole  result,  however,  of  the 

1  The  rupture  of  the  majority  with  the  President  was  brought  about  by 
the  hostile  attitude  of  the  extreme  Republicans  to  him  in  the  matter  of 
the  Barodet  election.  M.  de  R^musat,  M.  Thiers'  Minister  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  was  candidate  for  Paris,  and  was  opposed  by  M.  Barodet,  a  sym- 
pathiser with  the  Commune  (elected  Senator  of  the  Seine  twenty-three 
years  later  in  1896),  whom  Gambetta  supported,  the  President's  candi- 
date being  beaten  by  45,000  votes. 

2  The  Reactionaries  assert  that  Prince  Bismarck  took  exception  to  the 
dismissal  of  M.  Thiers,  because  he  thought  that  the  result  would  be  the 
foundation  of  a  strong  monarchy  better  able  than  the  Republic  to  cope 
with  Germany.  This  theory  seems  to  be  founded  on  unofficial  state- 
ments made  by  M.  de  Gontaut  Biron,  the  Royalist  Ambassador  of  France 
at  Berlin ;  but  even  if  he  represented  accurately  the  feeling  of  the  Ger- 
man Chancellor,  it  is  certain  that  the  indignation  felt  in  England  and 
elsewhere  at  the  treatment  of  M.  Thiers  was  disinterested. 


276  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  il 

24th  of  May,  1873,  was  to  provide  a  definite  date  to  mark 
the  opening  of  the  era  of  reactionary  incompetence  in 
France.  During  many  years  after  the  day  when  the 
Monarchists  sacrificed  M.  Thiers,  because  he  seemed 
to  obstruct  their  schemes,  the  country  intimated  from 
time  to  time,  more  or  less  clearly,  that  it  was  not  in- 
disposed to  discard  the  Republic,  if  only  a  strong  and 
imposing  form  of  government  were  forthcoming  to  take 
its  place  ;  and  each  recurring  occasion  only  helped  to 
establish  a  tradition  that  anti-Republicanism  in  France 
is  synonymous  with   political  feebleness  and  ineptitude. 

It  is  from  the  election  of  Marshal  MacMahon  that  the 
history  of  the  Presidency  of  the  Third  Republic  com- 
mences, though  his  election  was  compassed  for  the  pur- 
pose of  extinguishing  both  the  Presidency  and  the 
Republic. 

When  the  National  Assembly  met  in  November,  1873, 
the  President,  in  his  message  read  by  the  Prime  Minister, 
the  Due  de  Broglie,^  after  remarking  that  nothing  had 
occurred  in  the  vacation  to  trouble  the  public  peace,  rec- 
ommended the  House  to  establish  a  form  of  government 
which  would  attract  the  support  of  all  lovers  of  order 
without  distinction  of  party.  Untroubled  as  the  autumn 
had  been,  important  events  had  occurred  which  produced, 
instead  of  a  decided  declaration  of  policy,  this  vague 
appeal  for  the  establishment  of  a  vague  government. 
The  Comte  de  Paris  had  made  his  ill-starred  pilgrimage 
to  Frohsdorf  ^  to  abandon  to  the  grandson  of  Charles  X. 

1  At  that  epoch  the  Minister  who  formed  and  gave  his  name  to  the 
Cabinet  was  officially  styled  "Vice-President  of  the  Council."  After 
1876  he  was  called  "  President  of  the  Council." 

a  August  6,  1873. 


CH.  n  THE  MONARCHICAL  FUSION  277 

the  pretensions  of  the  family  of  Orleans  to  the  Crown, 
and  to  accept  the  position  of  Dauphin  of  France,  thus, 
by  implication,  denouncing  his  grandfather  Louis  Phi- 
lippe as  a  usurper.  With  the  government  of  Moral  Order 
in  command  of  the  administration,  it  seemed,  in  spite  of 
the  successes  of  Republican  candidates  at  legislative  bye- 
elections,  as  though  the  moment  had  arrived  for  the  res- 
toration of  the  Monarchy,  when  its  supporters  were 
thrown  into  disarray  by  the  Comte  de  Chambord's^ 
resumption  of  his  original  resolve  only  to  accept  the 
Crown  with  the  white  flag,  which  thus  became  the 
shroud  of  the  Royalist  party.  Not  that  that  party  in- 
tended to  end  its  life  at  the  moment  when  it  seemed  to 
be  fuller  of  vitality  than  at  any  period  since  1815;  but 
the  situation  was  embarrassing.  A  Republic  without 
Republicans  is  less  anomalous  than  a  Monarchy  without  a 
king,  and  the  only  possibility  of  the  advent  of  a  king  lay 
in  the  abdication  or  the  death  of  the  Comte  de  Chambord, 
whose  adherence  to  the  white  flag  alienated  even  ardent 
anti-Republicans,  the  gallant  soldier  at  the  head  of  af- 
fairs declaring  that  the  rifles  would  go  off  by  themselves 
if  the  army  were  despoiled  of  its  glorious  tricolour. 

The  uncertainty  as  to  what  form  of  government  the 
country  desired  was  such  that  even  the  Bonapartists, 
presuming  on  the  Emperor's  death  to  dim  the  stigma  of 
Sedan,  and  full  of  hope  in  the  stripling  promise  of  his  son, 
boldly  proposed  their  traditional  remedy  for  the  perplex- 
ities of  democracies,  and  invited  the  Assembly  to  pre- 
scribe a  plebiscite  at  which  every  adult  citizen  should 
pronounce  for  Monarchy,  Republic,  or  Empire.^     Mean- 

1  October  27,  1873. 

2  Proposition  feschassorieux,  November  6,  1873. 


278  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

while  the  reproach  addressed  by  the  Republicans  to  the 
unsolid  monarchical  majority  seemed  justified.  "  You 
will  not  inaugurate  the  Republic,"  said  MM.  Grevy  and 
Jules  Simon,  "and  you  cannot  found  the  Monarchy."  ^ 
Undoubtedly  the  idea  of  the  majority  in  establishing  the 
Septennate  was  that  it  would  be  a  halting-place  where 
the  Monarchists  might  organise  their  forces  and  arrange 
their  differences,  while  the  permanent  exclusion  of  the 
aged  M.  Thiers  might  thus  be  assured.  No  one,  how- 
ever, quite  knew  the  part  that  Marshal  MacMahon  was 
going  to  play.  When  tlie  proposal  was  made  to  confer 
the  Presidency  upon  him  for  ten  years,  that  term  obvi- 
ously suggested  comparisons  with  the  Consulate  conferred 
on  Bonaparte,  but  it  was  equally  obvious  that  no  parallel 
could  be  drawn  with  the  18  Brumaire,  as  no  one  imputed 
to  the  Marshal  the  intention  of  re-establishing  a  throne  for 
his  own  occupation.  Some  of  the  Royalists  described  the 
arrangement  as  a  Protectorate  ;  others  referred  to  the 
Lieutenancy- General  of  the  Comte  d'Artois  in  1814 
between  Napoleon's  abdication  at  Fontainebleau  and  the 
arrival  of  Louis  XVIII. ;  while  other  orators  demanded, 
as  had  been  already  asked  concerning  M.  Thiers,  whether 
MacMahon  was  going  to  be  a  Washington  or  a  Monk. 

The  latter  of  those  worthies  is  the  one  hero  of  English 
history  whose  name  since  the  French  Revolution  has  been 
more  familiar  in  France  than  in  England.  The  successive 
dethronements  of  various  dynasties,  and  the  subsequent 
recall  of  some  of  them,  have  made  Frenchmen  constantly 
regard  a  restoration  of  a  former  regime  as  the  possible 
termination  of  every  form  of  government.  Consequently 
the  apparition  of  the  General  who  brought  back  Charles 
^  Assembl^e  Nationale :  Stances  du  18  et  19  Novembre,  1873. 


CH.  II  THE  TRADITION  OF  MONK  279 

Stuart  to  England  is  always  being  looked  for,  and  each 
generation  asks,  "  Who  is  to  be  the  Monk  of  our  Restora- 
tion ?  "  When  Dumouriez,  after  his  victories  of  Valmy 
and  Jemmapes,  declared  against  the  Convention,  his  de- 
fection was  ascribed  to  the  wish  to  be  the  Monk  of  the 
French  Revolution.  Five  years  later,  amid  the  anarchy 
of  the  Directory,  the  Royalists  rashly  hoped  that  the  fame 
of  Monk  might  be  the  ambition  of  the  young  hero  of 
Areola  and  of  Rivoli.  When,  in  1814,  that  General  of 
the  Army  of  Italy  was  relegated  to  an  Italian  island,  hav- 
ing in  the  meanwhile  been  Emperor  of  Western  Europe, 
would-be  Monks  to  bring  back  the  Bourbons  swarmed 
among  the  "gens  de  Bonaparte."  It  was  not  the  moment 
for  an  ambitious  soldier  to  play  the  part,  as  Marmont 
found  out,  but  there  was  no  lack  of  civilians  among  the 
late  Imperial  retinue  to  share  the  credit  of  the  Restoration 
with  the  Allies.  Talleyrand  would  not  have  disdained  it, 
and  Fouche,  Duke  of  the  Empire,  thought  that  his  share 
in  the  guillotining  of  one  royal  brother  demanded  his 
instant  protection  of  the  two  survivors.  The  escape  from 
Elba,  however,  put  an  end  to  retrospective  claims  to  the 
Monkship  of  the  first  Restoration,  and  when  Louis  XVIII. 
was  finally  put  back  in  the  Tuileries  no  one  disputed  that 
he  owed  his  throne  to  alien  aid,  as  the  grateful  monarch 
testified  when,  like  Charles  II.  who  created  his  restorer 
Duke  of  Albemarle,  he  made  Wellington  Due  de  Brunoy 
in  the  kingdom  of  France  as  recompense  for  the  victory 
of  Waterloo.^    The  nephew  of  the  loser  of  that  battle  was 

1  The  formal  granting  of  this  title  by  Louis  XVIII.  to  the  Duke  of 
Wellington  is  difficult  to  verify.  In  the  Illustrated  N^ews  of  September 
25,  1852,  a  letter  was  published  from  a  witness  of  the  entry  of  the  Allies 
into  Paris  who  repeated  tlie  story  that  Louis  XVIII.  made  Wellington 
"Duke  of  Brunoy,"  and  also  a  "  Knight  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  a  Mar- 


280  THE   CHIEF  OF  THE   STATE  bk.  n 

perhaps  the  least  likely  Monk  ever  conceived,  yet  there 
were  ingenuous  Royalists  who  imagined  that  Louis  Napo- 
leon  made  his  Coup  d'Etat  to  prepare  the  way  for  the 
elder  Bourbons  disinherited  by  his  enemies  the  Orleans. 
The  Bishop  of  Chartres,  Mgr.  de  Montals,  an  aged  Legiti- 
mist, ventured  thus  to  address  the  Prince  President  to 
his  face  :  "  You  cannot  keep  for  yourself  the  supreme 
power.  The  part  that  you  have  to  play  is  that  of  Monk, 
and  in  saving  France  thus  you  will  acquire  a  more  lasting 
glory  than  that  of  your  uncle."  ^  When  the  Man  of  De- 
cember was  a  fallen  Emperor  and  a  prisoner  at  Wilhelm- 
shohe,  it  was  the  perverted  image  of  Monk  which  impelled 
Bazaine  to  treason   at  Metz  ;    and  when  the   Comte  de 

shal  of  France,"  but  at  his  funeral  the  Dukedom  of  Brunoy  was  not 
included  in  the  list  of  foreign  titles  proclaimed  at  the  grave-side  by  the 
Heralds.  Louis  XVIII.  before  the  Revolution,  when  Comte  de  Provence, 
purchased  the  Seigneurie  of  Brunoy  from  the  heirs  of  Marmontel,  who, 
early  in  the  century,  had  bought  from  the  La  Rochefoucauld  family  the 
Marquisate,  which,  in  1775,  was  erected  into  a  Duch^-Pairie.  It  was 
thus  the  private  appanage  of  the  restored  King,  and  if  he  conferred  a  title 
on  the  Duke  of  Wellington  it  is  likely  to  have  been  selected  by  him  as  a 
pei-sonal  gift.  Living  near  Branoy,  I  found  that  though  the  tradition 
lingered  there  nothing  authentic  was  known  about  it.  Messrs.  Hachette 
told  me  that  they  had  not  been  able  to  corroborate  the  version  of  it  in 
the  1878  edition  of  their  Environs  de  Paris  Ulustres :  it  was,  I  imagine, 
copied  from  the  Itineraire  de  Paris  a  Sens  par  Jeannest  St.  Hilaire, 
where  the  fact  is  stated  without  the  citation  of  decree  or  letters  patent. 
The  Duchess  of  Wellington  kindly  made  some  inquiries  at  my  request  at 
the  Heralds'  College  in  1895,  without  result.  In  the  Bulletins  des  Lois  of 
the  years  succeeding  the  Restoration  I  can  find  no  decree  conferring  this 
title  among  the  patents  of  honours  conferred  on  Talleyrand  and  other 
makers  of  the  Restoration  :  but  if  Louis  XVIII.  conferred  French  hon- 
ours on  the  victor  of  Waterloo,  he  would  not  have  given  excessive  pub- 
licity to  them.  A  learned  resident  of  Brunoy,  M.  Ch.  Mottheau,  who 
does  not  think  that  the  story  was  a  mere  invention  of  Bonapartist  enemies 
of  the  Bourbons,  informs  me  that  a  relative  of  M.  de  Courcel  is  investi- 
gating the  interesting  point. 

1  Hist,  du  Cardinal  Pie,  liv.  ii.  c,  4. 


CH.  n  THE  SEPTENNATE  OF  MACMAHON  281 

Paris,  with  the  fatality  which  attended  his  every  transac- 
tion, accepted  in  an  evil  moment  the  protection  of  the 
soldier  of  fortune  who,  as  Minister  of  War,  had  insolently 
dismissed  his  kinsman  from  the  army  of  France,  it  was 
because  his  adherents  were  persuaded  that  at  last  a  veri- 
table Monk  had  appeared  in  the  person  of  General  Bou- 
langer. 

Marshal  MacMahon  did  not  model  his  conduct  on  that 
of  any  historical  personage,  either  in  restoring  a  dynasty, 
or  in  establishing  a  commonwealth,  or  in  seizing  a  dicta- 
torship. The  Septennate  was  conferred  upon  him,  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  the  Republicans,  as  a  bridge  of  years 
which  might  possibly  lead  from  the  Republic  to  a  Mon- 
archy. Some  of  the  opposition  leaders  denounced  the 
arrangement  as  illegal.  They  argued  that  the  National 
Assembly  was  a  constituent  body  whose  mandate  was  to 
make  a  constitution,  and  that  in  preluding  that  work  by 
attaching  the  Presidency  to  a  person  for  a  term  of  years 
beyond  the  limits  of  its  own  existence,  it  was  both  trans- 
gressing its  powers  and  destroying  its  constituent  char- 
acter. One  of  the  weightiest  opponents  of  the  Law  of 
November,  1873,  conferring  the  Presidency  on  MacMahon 
for  seven  years,  was  the  only  President  of  the  Republic 
who  ever  profited  to  the  full  from  the  septennial  rule  thus 
established.  M.  Grevy  had,  in  the  National  Assembly  of 
1848,  acquired  his  first  fame  in  opposing  the  creation  of 
the  office  of  President  of  the  Republic,  and  the  general 
tenor  of  his  criticisms  during  the  debates  of  1873  and 
1875  was  to  indicate  the  dangerous  use  to  which  that  post 
might  be  put. 

Thus  the  Chambers,  created  under  the  Constitution  of 
1875,  were  not  called  upon  to  use  their  prerogative  in 


282  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  n 

choosing  a  chief  of  the  Executive,  as  they  found  a  Presi- 
dent ready  installed,  who  eventually  was  much  more  dif- 
ficult to  dislodge  than  modern  rulers  of  France  usually 
have  been,^  and  the  somewhat  confused  debates  in  the 
National  Assembly  throw  little  new  light  on  the  concep- 
tion of  the  Chief  of  the  State.  The  most  important 
incident  of  these  discussions  occurred  after  the  adoption 
of  an  amendment  making  the  Senate  elective  by  the  same 
electors  as  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  :  whereupon  the 
President  sent  a  message  to  the  Assembly  to  the  effect 
that  as  that  vote  destroyed  the  special  character  of  the 
Second  Chamber,  and  compromised  the  conservative  inter- 
ests of  the  country,  he  could  not  accept  it.^  The  Repub- 
licans yielded,  and  during  all  the  long  period  in  which 
they  have  had  the  majority  in  the  two  Chambers  they 
have  never  used  it  to  restore  the  amendment  of  the  Con- 
stitution disallowed  by  Marshal  MacMahon. 


II 

The  articles  of  the  Constitution  of  1875  relating  to  the 
President  of  the  Republic,  his  election  and  his  powers, 

1  The  legendary  "  J'y  suis,  j'y  reste,"  which  became  the  device  of  the 
Marshal  during  his  conflict  with  the  Chamber  after  the  "  Seize  Mai,"  was 
constantly  quoted  as  indicative  of  his  character  long  before  there  was  any 
certainty  of  the  Republicans  getting  the  upper  hand.  In  the  Assembl^e 
Nationale,  on  the  eve  of  the  passing  of  the  Septennate  law,  M.  de  Castel- 
lane  told  the  well-known  story,  "  C'^tait  k  Malakoff  :  le  premier  il  entre 
dans  la  citadelle ;  elle  est  min^e :  elle  va  I'ensevelir  sous  ses  ruines ; 
n'importe.  II  se  jette  sur  le  t616graphe  et  6crit  h  son  chef  cette  parole 
sublime:  'J'y  suis  et  j'y  reste.'  Que  le  parti  conservateur  imite  cet 
exemple.  Lui  aussi  il  est  dans  une  tour  min^e,"  etc.  (Sfiance  du  18 
Novembre,  1873). 

2  Assembl^e  Nationale:  Stances  du  11  et  12  F6vrier,  1875  (see  vol.  ii. 
p.  6). 


CH.  n  PRESIDENTIAL  ELECTIONS  283 

are  as  follows.  He  is  elected  by  absolute  majority  of 
the  Senate  and  Chamber  united,  which  electoral  college 
is  called  the  National  Assembly,  and  in  the  case  of  ex- 
traordinary vacancy,  owing  to  death  or  other  cause,  it  is 
forthwith  summoned  for  the  election  of  a  new  President,^ 
the  Council  of  Ministers  being  invested  with  the  executive 
power  in  the  interval.  He  is  elected  for  seven  years  and 
can  be  re-elected,^  but  it  is  necessary  to  complete  the  entire 
septennial  term  in  order  to  be  eligible  for  re-election,  as 
the  term  commences  from  the  day  of  the  appointment  of 
the  actual  President  without  any  reference  to  the  duration 
of  the  presidency  of  his  predecessor.^  As  M.  Grevy  was 
made  to  relinquish  the  presidency  early  in  his  second 
term,  France  has  not  yet  experienced  the  government  of 
one  President  of  the  Republic  for  fourteen  years.  It  is 
urged  that  that  period  is  far  too  long  for  an  elective  chief 
of  the  State  to  be  at  the  head  of  affairs,  it  being  the  length 
of  an  average  reign  in  most  countries,  or  indeed  of  a 
dynasty  in  modern  France — longer  than  the  First  Empire, 
and  almost  as  long  as  the  Restoration.  The  unpopularity 
of  M.  Grevy  in  his  second  term  of  office,  and  the  compara- 

iL.C.  25  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  2  et  7.  (The  letters  L.C.  signify  Loi 
Constitutionnelle. ) 

2  L.C.  25  F^vrier,  1875,  art  2. 

8  In  the  early  days  of  Marshal  MacMahon's  presidency  it  was  his 
practice  to  summon  informally  to  the  ;fclys6e  certain  prominent  members 
of  the  Right  Centre  and  of  the  Left  Centre  of  the  National  Assembly  to 
confer  with  him  on  the  Constitutional  Laws  then  about  to  be  voted  ;  and 
the  moderate  Conservatives  thus  proposed  a  scheme  somewhat  resembling 
the  Constitutional  Law  of  the  United  States  relating  to  the  vacancy  in  the 
office  of  President  to  the  effect  that  if  the  Marshal  disappeared  before 
the  close  of  his  septennate  he  should  be  replaced  by  another  President 
who  should  hold  office  until  1880,  the  date  at  which  the  seven  years 
of  the  Marshal  expired.  This  plan  was  known  as  the  "Septennat 
impersonnel." 


284  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 


tive  ease  with  which  he  was  prevailed  upon  to  resign, 
perhaps  indicate  that  a  prolonged  sojourn  at  the  head  of 
the  State  contains  in  itself  the  remedy  to  prevent  its  be- 
coming dangerous. 

The  President  of  the  Republic  has  the  right  of  initiat- 
ing laws  concurrently  with  the  members  of  the  two 
Chambers,^  a  power  which  bears  more  resemblance  to  that 
enjoyed  by  the  Sovereign  in  England  and  in  other  con- 
stitutional monarchies  than  that  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  who  only  recommends  measures  to  the 
examination  of  Congress.'^  He  promulgates  the  laws 
when  they  have  been  voted  by  the  two  Chambers  within 
a  month  in  ordinary  cases,  and  within  three  days  if  they 
are  declared  urgent  by  either  House  of  Legislature. ^  He 
has  the  right  of  pardon,*  which  is  practically  an  absolute 
right,  subject  to  certain  formalities.  He  has  at  his  dis- 
position the  armed  forces  of  the  country,  a  power  which 
seems  remarkable  when  it  is  considered  that  the  President 
to  whom  it  was  given  without  restriction  by  the  Assembly 
which  established  the  Republic  was  a  Marshal  of  France. 
The  explanation  seems  to  be  that  the  Republicans  were  so 
glad  to  have  the  Republican  regime  assured  by  peaceable 
means  that  they  were  willing  to  give  large  prerogatives  to 
the  Chief  of  the  State,  feeling  sure  that  in  the  face  of  the 
hopeless  division  of  the  monarchical  parties  they  could 
not  be  used  by  the  Marshal-President  against  the  young 
Republic,  and  that  in  the  future  the  legislative  represent- 
atives, to  whom  was  confided  the  choice  of  the  Chief  of 
the  Executive,  would  take  care  not  to  elect  a  person  likely 

1  L.C.  25  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  3. 

*  Pierre,  Traite  de  Droit  Politique :  "  Initiative  des  Lois." 

»  L.C.  16  JuiUet,  1875,  art.  7.  *  L.C.  25  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  3. 


CH.  11  POWERS  OF  THE  PRESIDENT  285 

to  misuse  this  prerogative.^  It  is  limited  by  the  Con- 
stitutional Law  of  July,  1875,  which  declares  that  the 
President  cannot  declare  war  without  the  previous  con- 
sent of  the  two  Chambers.^  All  civil  and  military  ap- 
pointments are  made  by  him,  but  this  is  only  a  nominal 
prerogative,^  the  President  of  the  French  Republic  having 
no  other  patronage  at  his  disposal  than  that  of  the  posts 
in  his  own  household.  The  American  spoils'  system  has 
no  counterpart  in  France.  It  is  practised  in  the  sense 
that  since  the  Republicans  came  into  power  the  profession 
of  Reactionary  opinions  has  been  generally  a  bar  to  em- 
ployment in  the  administration  and  the  magistracy,  just 
as  Republicans  under  the  government  of  Moral  Order 
were  excluded  from  public  appointments.  But  so  far 
from  the  election  of  a  new  President  causing  an  upheaval 
in  the  civil  service,  like  that  associated  with  the  advent 
to  office  of  a  President  in  the  United  States,  there  are 
fewer  functionaries  affected  by  a  change  of  the  Chief  of 
the  State  than  by  one  of  the  frequent  changes  of  ministry. 
Consequently  the  crowd  of  office-seekers  who  throng  the 
receptions  at  the  White  House  is  unknown  at  the  Elysee, 
as  on  the  most  importunate  the  French  President  has 
nothing  to  bestow.* 

1  «'  Nous  avons  consent!  k  vous  donner  le  pouvoir  ex^cutif  le  plus  fort 
qu'on  ait  jamais  constitu^  dans  un  pays  d'^lection  et  de  d^mocratie" 
(Gambetta,  Ass.  Nat.  Stance  du  12  F^vrier,  1875). 

2  L.C.  16  Juillet,  1875,  art.  9. 

'  M.  Jules  Simon  records  that  when  he  became  Prime  Minister  in  1876 
Marshal  MacMahon,  in  the  most  constitutional  manner,  never  refused  his 
signature  for  the  replacing  of  Reactionary  functionaries  by  Republicans, 
though  the  President  made  no  disguise  of  his  personal  preference  for 
"  enemies  of  the  Republic." 

*  L.C.  25  F^vrier,  1876,  art.  3.  The  Constitution,  in  providing  that 
every  act  of  the  President  has  to  be  countersigned  by  a  Minister,  relieves 
him  of  the  responsibility  of  private  patronage. 


286  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

The  President  of  the  Republic  usually  presides  over 
the  meetings  of  the  Cabinet,  in  which  he  takes  some- 
times an  active  part,  his  observations  generally  relating 
to  matters  within  the  competence  of  the  Foreign  Minister 
or  the  Minister  of  War.  He  presides  at  all  the  national 
solemnities,  and  to  him  are  accredited  ambassadors  and 
diplomatic  envoys  :  he  has,  moreover,  under  certain  lim- 
itations, the  power  to  ratify  and  negotiate  treaties.* 
Unlike  the  Ministers  he  is  accounted  personally  respon- 
sible only  in  the  case  of  high  treason  :  ^  moreover  a  mem- 
ber of  any  family  which  has  reigned  over  France  is 
ineligible  for  the  office.^ 

Some  of  these  attributes  will  be  noticed  later  ;  but 
two  prerogatives  conferred  on  the  President  by  the  Con- 
stitution, that  of  dissolving  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
before  its  legal  term,  on  the  advice  of  the  Senate,  and 
that  of  adjourning  the  sittings  of  Parliament  for  a 
month,*  were  used  by  Marshal  MacMahon  during  the 
crisis  known  as  the  Seize  Mai,  from  the  date  on  which 
it  commenced,  and  reference  to  it  here  will  fall  in  proper 
chronological  order. 

The  first  Chamber  elected  after  the  voting  of  the  Con- 
stitutional Laws  of  1875  contained  a  large  Republican 
majority,  the  famous  363,  while  in  the  Senate  the  Re- 
actionaries prevailed.  The  clerical  party,  disappointed 
at  its  defeat  at  the  polls,  due  in  part  to  its  exterior  inter- 
ference, which  was  imperilling  the  relations  of  France 
with  Germany  and  Italy,  became  so  aggressive  that  the 
ministry,  presided  over  by  M.  Jules  Simon,  the  least 
anti-clerical  of  French  Liberals,  had  to  accept  a  motion 

»  L.C.  16  Juillet,  1875,  art.  8.  «  L.C.  13  Aofit,  1884,  art.  2. 

3  L.C.  25  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  6.  *  L.C.  16  Juillet,  1875,  art.  2. 


THE  SEIZE  MAI  287 


inviting  it  to  use  the  same  disciplinary  policy  towards 
the  Church  which  had  been  followed  by  Napoleon  III. 
and  Louis  Philippe.  It  was  then  that  Gambetta  made 
use  of  his  famous  exclamation,  "Le  clericalisme,  voila 
I'ennemi."  Some  days  later,  on  the  morrow  of  a  less 
important  debate,  a  letter  appeared  in  the  Officiel,  dated 
May  16,  1877,  from  President  MacMahon  to  his  Prime 
Minister,  informing  him  that  he  had  no  longer  his  con- 
fidence, as  it  was  clear  that  he  had  lost  the  influence 
over  the  Chamber  which  a  President  of  the  Council 
ought  to  exercise. 

M.  Jules  Simon  resigned  and  the  Due  de  Broglie  took 
his  place,  the  President  announcing  to  the  Chambers  that 
he  intended  to  act  on  his  constitutional  right  of  choosing 
counsellors  sharing  his  views,  and  by  virtue  of  the  Law 
of  1875  he  adjourned  them  for  a  month.  On  resuming, 
the  Lower  House,  by  a  large  majority,  denounced  the 
coalition  of  groups  hostile  to  the  Republic,  and  the  Sen- 
ate, at  the  request  of  the  President,  authorised  the  disso- 
lution of  the  Chamber.  The  administrative  electoral 
machinery  was  now  in  the  hands  of  the  Reactionaries,  the 
Broglie  Ministry  having  followed  the  policy,  traditional 
in  France,  of  replacing  the  functionaries  hostile  to  it  with 
its  own  partisans ;  but  in  spite  of  this  advantage  for  the 
official  candidates,  patronised  by  the  Government  accord- 
ing to  the  methods  practised  under  the  Empire,  and  of  a 
fiery  manifesto  of  the  Marshal-President  (which  indeed 
was  eclipsed  by  a  posthumous  appeal  of  M.  Thiers,  who 
died  on  the  eve  of  the  elections),  a  Republican  majority 
was  sent  back  to  the  Chamber,  and  the  Broglie  Cabinet 
resigned.  The  Marshal  sent  for  General  de  Rochebouet, 
who  formed  a  ministry  of  unknown  Reactionaries,  but  as 


288  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

the  Chamber  refused  to  vote  supply  it  survived  only  for  a 
few  days,  when  M.  Dufaure  formed  a  Republican  Cabinet  ^ 
which  lasted  for  the  remainder  of  the  MacMahon  Presi- 
dency. 

The  history  of  the  Seize  Mai  merits  attention,  as  it 
indicates  the  difference  of  the  English  and  the  French 
conception  of  what  is  constitutional,  and  also  displays 
how  inconveniently  a  written  constitution  may  work  with 
parliamentary  institutions.  The  Constitutional  Laws  of 
the  Third  Republic  make  no  mention  of  the  nomination 
of  Ministers  which  is  deemed  the  prerogative  of  the  Presi- 
dent, in  virtue  of  the  article  investing  him  with  the  ap- 
pointment to  all  civil  and  military  posts.  The  practice 
now  is  for  a  member  of  the  retiring  Cabinet  ^  to  counter- 
sign the  presidential  nomination  of  the  new  Prime  Minister, 
who  in  turn  countersigns  those  of  his  colleagues  ;  but  if 
all  the  retiring  Ministers  refused  to  thus  endorse  the 
nomination  of  the  new  President  of  the  Council  there 
would  probably  be  a  deadlock,  the  law  making  no  provi- 
sion for  the  case.  Here  we  have  then  what  in  England 
would  be  called  a  constitutional  practice  growing  up  side 
by  side  with  a  written  Constitution.  Again,  the  law  is 
silent  on  the  powers  of  the  President  of  the  Republic  to 
dismiss  a  ministry,  so  an  unwritten  theory  has  here  also 
to  be  applied  to  the  effect  that  the  President  cannot  make 
his  Ministers  resign  so  long  as  they  retain  the  confidence 
of  the  majority  in  the  popular  chamber.  But  on  the  Seize 
Mai  the  ministry  dismissed  by  the  Marshal  had  a  great 
majority  in  the  Chamber,  and  his  arbitrary  disregard  for 
it  was,  from  the  English  point  of   view,  an  unconstitu- 

1  December  13, 1877. 

2  Usually  the  Keeper  of  the  Seals,  or  the  retiring  Prime  Minister. 


CH.  II  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  SEIZE  MAI  289 

tional  act.  Yet  contemporary  records  show  that  amid  all 
the  passion  roused  by  this  coup  d'Hat^  it  was  rarely  sug- 
gested that  the  President  had  acted  unconstitutionally, 
though  his  action  was  notoriously  due  to  the  advice  of 
a  small  band  of  irresponsible  counsellors  unknown  to  the 
Constitution.  Indeed,  Gambetta,  the  rival  champion  of 
MacMahon  in  this  crisis,  said  in  all  sincerity  on  the  mor- 
row of  the  event,  "  No  one  can  deny  the  President's  loyalty 
to  the  Constitution."  1  This  indicates  precisely  the  dif- 
ference between  the  English  and  the  French  conception  of 
loyalty  to  a  Constitution. ^  The  British  sovereign  might 
adhere  to  the  letter  of  the  written  law,  and  yet  be  guilty 
of  unconstitutional  conduct:  the  chief  of  the  French 
Executive,  so  long  as  he  adheres  to  the  letter  of  the  writ- 
ten law,  is  not  accounted  disloyal  to  the  Constitution, 
even  by  his  enemies. 

The  turbulence  of  the  debates  at  Versailles  when  the 
Chamber  reassembled  did  not  favour  calm  juridical  dis- 
cussion, and  few  of  the  speakers^  referred  to  the  consti- 
tutional aspect  of  the  crisis.  Gambetta  during  the 
adjournment  had  said,  "The  struggle  is  more  profound 
than  a  mere  combat  for  the  Constitution.  The  struggle 
is  between  the  old  castes,  with  their  privileges  of  a  by- 
gone regime,  between  the  agents  of  the  theocracy  of 
Rome,  and  the  sons  of  1789."*    This  language,  stripped 

1  Chambre  des  D^put^,  17  Mai,  1877. 

2  Certain  Constitutional  authorities  of  our  colonies  do  not  take  quite 
this  view.  They  justify  a  governor,  the  representative  of  the  British  sov- 
ereign, who  would  dismiss  a  ministry  possessing  a  majority  in  the  repre- 
sentative Assembly,  provided  that  he  believed  that  the  electorate  would 
give  a  majority  to  the  new  minister  called  to  office,  and  this  practice  seems 
ta  be  justified,  as  constitutional,  by  Secretaries  of  State. 

«  M.  Jules  Ferry  dealt  with  it :  Chambre  des  D^putfe,  18  Juin,  1877. 
♦  Discours  h.  la  Deputation  de  la  Jeunesse  des  6coles :  1  Juin,  1877. 
VOL.  I  u 


290  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

of  rhetoric,  expressed  the  opinion  of  both  parties  in  the 
contest.  The  Seize  Mai  was  a  political  and  not  a  consti- 
tutional crisis.  The  question  at  issue  was  not  whether 
the  President  of  the  Republic  should  have  the  right  to 
override  the  majority  of  the  popular  chamber,  but  whether 
the  Republic  should  continue  to  exist.  That  the  Repub- 
licans have  never,  during  their  subsequent  predominance, 
amended  the  Constitution  by  limiting  the  powers  of  the 
President  in  dismissing  or  choosing  his  Ministers,  shows 
that  the  Seize  Mai  was  an  attempt  to  change  the  political 
form  of  government  rather  than  to  enlarge  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  Chief  of  the  State.  The  comparative  experi- 
ence of  the  methods  of  Marshal  MacMahon  and  of  Louis 
Napoleon  proved  to  France  that  a  coup  d'Stat^  to  be  effec- 
tive, requires  armed  force  which  no  constitutional  enact- 
ments can  guard  against. 

The  pretension  assumed  by  the  President  to  dismiss  a 
Minister  for  carrying  or  accepting  a  resolution  in  the 
popular  chamber  bears  little  analogy  to  the  right  of  veto 
on  legislation  exercised  by  certain  constitutional  rulers, 
though  the  President  has  a  power  resembling  that  of 
veto.  He  can,  after  the  passing  of  a  bill  in  the  two 
Chambers,  by  a  message  to  them  insist  on  a  further  de- 
liberation on  it.^  This  right  cannot  be  applied  to  any 
measure  revising  the  Constitution,  and  therefore  affecting 
the  President's  own  position,  as  the  National  Assembly 
convoked  for  a  congress  of  revision  is  dissolved  the  mo- 
ment it  has  voted  its  amendments  of  the  Constitution  : 
thus,  as  a  message  cannot  be  addressed  to  a  body  which  has 
ceased  to  exist,  the  President  has  no  means  of  demanding 
a  second  deliberation  upon  measures  relating  to  himself. 
1  L.C.  16  Juillet,  1875,  art.  7. 


OH.  II  IMPORTANCE   OF  THE   SEIZE  MAI  291 

The  coup  d'etat  of  the  Seize  Mai  was  condemned  by 
all  Europe  from  its  inception.  Even  had  it  produced 
a  reactionary  majority  it  is  hard  to  see  what  would  have 
been  done  with  it,  for  the  Comte  de  Chambord  had  still 
six  years  to  live,  so  a  Restoration  was  not  practical, 
and  MacMahon  had  neither  the  ambition  nor  the  un- 
scrupulousness  to  institute  a  military  dictatorship.  Its 
chief  effects  were  to  prove  again  to  the  country  the  in- 
competence of  the  Monarchists,  and,  by  associating  in 
the  public  mind  the  Church  with  this  abortive  attempt, 
to  provoke  reprisals  from  the  anti-clericals  when  they  got 
the  upper  hand,  the  bitterness  of  which  still  lingers  in 
the  land.  After  the  submission  of  Marshal  MacMahon, 
Gambetta  sagaciously  expressed  the  wish  that  he  should 
be  allowed  to  complete  his  term,  so  that  the  peaceful 
transmission  of  his  powers  to  a  duly  elected  successor 
might  display  the  advantage  of  Republican  rule  over  the 
other  regimes  of  the  century,  under  which  all  reigns  but 
one  had  come  to  a  violent  end.^  But  the  old  soldier 
found  himself  isolated,  and  in  January,  1879,  he  made  a 
difference  of  opinion  on  a  military  question  an  excuse  for 
resigning,  when  M.  Jules  Grevy,  the  President  of  the 
Chamber,  was  elected  to  succeed  him  by  the  National 
Assembly,  which  thus  met  for  the  first  time  under  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitutional  Law.^ 

Ill 

M.  Grevy's  first  presidential  term  presents  few  points 
of  constitutional  interest.  Abuse  of  prerogative  was  not 
to  be  feared  from  the  grave  leader  of  the  bar,  who,  under 

1  Discours  k  Romans,  18  Septembre,  1878. 
«  L.C.  25  Fdvrier,  1876,  art.  2,  7. 


292  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

the  Empire,  had  been  pointed  out  to  young  Republicans 
as  the  author  of  the  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of 
1848  which,  if  carried,  would  have  prevented  the  Coup 
d'Etat  of  1851.^  After  that  event  his  abstention  from 
militant  politics,  and  on  the  4th  of  September,  1870,  his 
refusal  to  join  the  Government  of  National  Defence  be- 
cause it  was  the  offspring  of  revolution,  showed  him  to 
be  a  person  of  calm  ambitions.  But  though,  even  before 
the  war,  he  was  spoken  of  as  a  possible  President  of  the 
Republic,  he  only  attained  the  high  office  by  a  series  of 
chances,  being  chosen  on  the  refusal  of  M.  Dufaure  to  be 
nominated,  and  practically  on  the  proposition  of  Gam- 
betta.  The  latter,  indisposed  to  hurry  to  the  Presidency 
of  the  Republic,  was  ready  to  accept  the  Premiership  of 
M.  Grevy's  first  ministry,  but  assured  by  his  rivals,  of 
whom  the  new  President  of  the  Republic  was  the  most 
jealous,  that  time  was  not  yet  ripe  for  him  nominally  to 
direct  the  affairs  of  the  country,  he  accepted  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  Chamber.  In  that  position  he  wielded 
immense  power  without  responsibility ;  but  it  was  a 
situation  of  self-effacement,  and  M.  Grevy's  intrigues, 
which  kept  him  there,  form  a  striking  instance  of  the 
influence  of  a  President  of  the  Republic  on  the  destinies 
of  France.  Some  there  are  who  ascribe  to  this  initial 
policy  of  M.  Gr^vy  the  errors,  the  divisions,  and  the 
scandals  which  have  marked  the  history  of  the  Republic, 
of  which,  then  intact  and  of  clean  record,  the  vigour  and 
popularity  of  Gambetta  might  have  been  the  columns  of 
support  and  adornment.     Such  a  lament  implies  that  had 

1  The  amendment  was  to  the  effect  that  the  Second  Republic  should 
not  have  a  President,  the  executive  power  being  delegated  by  the  National 
Assembly  to  the  President  of  the  Council  of  Ministers. 


OH.  II  PKESIDENCY  OF  M.    GE^VY  293 

Gambetta  been  given  a  free  hand  to  govern  France  he 
would  not  have  died,  and  thus  it  falls  into  the  category 
of  regrets  which  attend  the  cutting  off  in  their  prime  of 
all  lives  of  potential  rulers  in  a  land  of  revolutions,  and 
are  as  futile  as  those  inspired  by  the  untimely  tombs  of 
the  Due  de  Berry  and  of  the  Due  d'Orleans,  of  the  King 
of  Rome  and  of  the  Prince  Imperial.  M.  Grevy's  first 
three  Prime  Ministers  —  MM.  Waddington,  de  Freycinet, 
and  Ferry  —  were  men  of  high  ability  :  but  by  deliber- 
ately keeping  out  of  office,  until  an  unfavourable  mo- 
ment, the  one  man  capable  of  uniting  a  strong  majority, 
the  President  of  the  Republic  perpetuated  the  vicious 
system,  no  longer  inevitable  as  it  had  been  under  the 
confused  regime  of  Marshal  MacMahon,  of  short-lived 
ministries  representing  groups. 

In  thus  effacing  a  personality  which  gave  promise  of 
overshadowing  every  other  in  France,  M.  Grevy  was 
aided  by  Gambetta's  rivals.  The  astute  veteran,  who 
had  bided  his  time  since  1848,  thought  that  as  the  office, 
the  creation  of  which  he  had  opposed  a  generation  before, 
had  by  the  irony  of  chance  devolved  on  him,  it  would 
be  ingratitude  to  fate  if  he  did  not  occupy  it  for  the  rest 
of  his  days.  The  Republic  was  quite  willing,  when 
Gambetta  was  dead,  that  M.  Grevy  should  be  President 
for  life,  the  system  of  short-lived  ministries  having 
effectually  discredited  in  turn  the  reputation  of  every 
prominent  politician.  In  December,  1885,  the  National 
Assembly  met  under  the  provision  of  the  Constitution 
that  a  month  before  the  legal  term  of  the  powers  of  the 
President  the  two  Chambers  shall  unite  to  fill  the  office 
for  another  seven  years. ^  The  question  was  raised  of 
1  L.C.  26  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  2,  et  16  Juillet,  1875,  art.  3. 


294  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

the  competence  of  members  to  discuss  the  candidates, 
there  being  no  statutory  regulations  controlling  the  pro- 
cedure of  the  Congress.  It  was  ruled  that  the  sole 
function  of  the  National  Assembly,  convoked  to  elect  a 
President  of  the  Republic,  was  to  give  its  votes  without 
debate  or  discourse ;  and  M.  Grevy  was  reappointed, 
practically  without  opposition. 

M.  Grevy  commenced  his  second  term  of  office  on 
January  31,  1886,  with  every  prospect  of  ending  his 
days  as  President  of  the  Republic ;  but  at  that  very 
moment  he  had  about  him  two  men  of  widely  different 
types,  one  in  the  Council  Chamber  and  the  other  on 
his  domestic  hearth,  who  were  destined  to  make  abor- 
tive the  experiment  of  a  second  septennate  vested  in 
the  same  hands.  He  had  entrusted  the  forming  of  his 
tenth  ministry  to  M.  de  Freycinet,  who  thus  becoming 
Prime  Minister  for  the  third  time  gave  the  portfolio 
of  War  to  General  Boulanger.  The  apparition  in  poli- 
tics of  that  phenomenal  figure  caused  a  complete  revo- 
lution in  the  spirit  of  the  French  population,  which, 
restless  and  ready  for  change,  would  have  remodelled 
the  form  of  government  and  the  functions  of  its  Presi- 
dent, had  its  new  leader  possessed  qualities  adequate 
to  the  occasion  offered  to  him.  The  acclamation  of  the 
Minister  of  War  by  the  people  of  Paris  on  the  national 
fete ;  his  popularity  in  the  army ;  the  jealousies  of  his 
colleagues  in  two  ministries ;  his  passage  from  the  posi- 
tion of  nominee  of  the  Radicals  to  that  of  protector  of 
the  Royalists,  all  contributed  to  agitate  the  public  mind ; 
so  when  he  came  into  conflict  with  the  Government,  and 
moreover  declared  for  revision  of  the  Constitution,  the 
growing  discontent  regarding  the  Presidency  of  the  Re- 


CH.  11  RE-ELECTION  OF  M.  GRfeVY  295 

public  seemed  likely,  with  his  aid,  to  overwhelm  that 
office.  M.  Grevy,  in  spite  of  his  re-election,  was  not 
popular.  His  distaste  for  ostentation  and  his  thrifty 
mode  of  life  were  ascribed  to  a  frugal  parsimony,  which, 
praiseworthy  in  the  French  peasant  stock  from  which  he 
sprang,  and  a  chief  source  of  the  national  wealth,  is 
unbecoming  when  unduly  practised  by  the  official  head 
of  a  great  and  brilliant  nation.  While  the  dazzling  con- 
trast of  the  unofficial  leader  was  aggravating  the  dis- 
content of  the  critics,  who  declared  that  the  President 
was  amassing  a  fortune  out  of  the  public  income  be- 
stowed upon  him  to  embellish  his  office,  it  was  discov- 
ered that  the  decoration  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  had 
been  made  an  object  of  traffic  ;  and  one  of  the  persons 
most  implicated  in  the  scandal  was  the  son-in-law  of 
M.  Gr^vy,  M.  Wilson,  an  Opportunist  deputy  and  a 
former  Under-Secretary  of  State,  who  resided  at  the 
Elysee  and  made  use  of  the  presidential  residence  as 
a  bureau  for  his  transactions. 

Consequently  public  opinion,  which  was  brought  home 
to  M.  Grevy  by  the  refusal  of  successive  politicians  to 
form  a  new  ministry  so  long  as  he  retained  his  post, 
forced  him  to  resign  two  years  after  his  second  election. 
The  date  of  his  message  to  the  Chambers,  announcing 
his  reluctant  decision,  might  have  reminded  General 
Boulanger,  philandering  at  that  crisis  in  a  village  inn 
in  Auvergne,  that  the  chance  of  a  coup  cfStat  does  not 
recur   on   every   2d    of    December ;  ^    but    though    that 

^  The  advocate-general  in  his  indictment  of  General  Boulanger  before 
the  High  Court  (August  9,  1889)  charged  him  with  conspiring  in  Paris 
on  December  2,  1887,  while,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  wa-s  on  that  date  hid- 
ing with  his  mistress  at  the  IlCtel  des  Marronniers  at  Royat. 


296  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  n 

incomplete  hero  declined  to  attempt  the  seizure  of  the 
supreme  power  then  or  on  subsequent  favourable  occa- 
sions, the  election  of  a  new  President  was  materially  in- 
fluenced by  his  disturbing  presence  in  the  land.  There 
were  three  prominent  candidates :  M.  de  Freycinet, 
thrice,  and  M.  Jules  Ferry,  twice  Prime  Minister,  and 
M.  Floquet,  the  Radical  President  of  the  Chamber. 
M.  Ferry,  in  spite  of  his  intolerant  policy  towards  the 
Church,  had  failed  to  retain  the  favour  of  the  Extreme 
Left,  and  the  military  reverses  in  Tonkin  under  his  sec- 
ond Ministry  had  made  his  unpopularity  general.  His 
old  colleague,  M.  de  Freycinet,  was  a  more  adroit  poli- 
tician, and  these  two  competitors  were  said  to  be  united 
by  a  bond  stronger  than  that  of  official  association  — 
their  former  jealousy  of  Gambetta.  Before  his  death 
neither  had  supported  him,  but  when  his  welcome 
disappearance  cleared  the  way  for  smaller  men,  they 
borrowed  his  doctrine  and  became  his  rival  successors. 
M.  Floquet  had  not  yet  been  a  Minister.  He  had  been 
Prefet  of  the  Seine  under  Gambetta,  and  was  a  kins- 
man of  M.  Ferry,  but  it  was  as  a  Radical  leader  that  he 
had  been  conspicuous  ever  since  the  day  he  left  the 
National  Assembly  in  1871  rather  than  support  the 
Versailles  Government  in  suppressing  the  Commune. 

It  is  important  to  notice  the  prominence  of  these  candi- 
dates for  the  Presidency  at  the  first  contested  election  for 
that  exalted  post,  as  displaying  how  the  attainment  of 
political  eminence  under  the  Third  Republic  invariably 
entails  the  loss  of  public  esteem  and  the  ill-will  of  political 
colleagues.  M.  Ferry  seemed  to  have  the  strongest  chances 
for  a  curious  reason.  As  he  was  supported  by  the  moder- 
ate Republicans  the  adherence  of  the  Reactionaries  would 


en.  II  PRESIDENTIAL  CANDIDATES  297 

have  assured  him  the  requisite  absolute  majority  in  the 
Congress ;  and  the  Reactionaries  were  willing  to  vote  for 
him  in  the  belief  that  his  election  would  produce  civil  war, 
so  bitter  was  the  hatred  of  the  Radicals  for  him  in  the 
Chamber,  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  and  in  the  street.  Gen- 
eral Boulanger's  wish  was  to  secure  a  President  who  would 
recall  him  to  the  Ministry  of  War,  where  he  could  mature 
his  plans,  and  M.  de  Freycinet  and  M.  Floquet  were  both 
so  certain  of  being  chosen  that  each  secretly  intimated  to 
him  the  position  he  would  hold  after  the  election.  M.  Cle- 
menceau,  who  till  then  had  wasted  his  brilliant  talents  as  a 
destroyer  and  a  maker  of  ministries,  now  further  glorified 
his  faculty  of  deposition  and  of  investiture  by  deciding,  in 
the  language  of  English  sport,  that  the  great  prize  should 
be  won  not  by  a  favourite  but  by  an  outsider. ^ 

The  Radicals  seeing  that  they  could  not  carry  M.  de 
Freycinet,  their  candidate  after  the  retirement  of  M.  Flo- 
quet, accepted  the  advice  of  M.  Clemenceau.  Conse- 
quently, at  the  National  Assembly  on  December  3,  1887, 
after  an  indecisive  first  ballot,  M.  Carnot  was  elected  by 
three-fourths  of  the  suffrages  of  the  electoral  college.  A 
legend  arose  that  the  Assembly,  filled  with  shame  for  the 
iniquity  of  M.  Wilson,  called  to  mind  an  act  of  probity  of 
M.  Carnot  when  he  was  Minister  of  Finance,  and  wonder- 
struck  at  the  spectacle  of  virtue  unsullied  by  the  contact 
of  politicians,  hailed  him  as  the  upright  man  to  save  the 
civic  honour.     The  story  cannot  be  substantiated.     No 

1  "Tout  plutdt  que  la  guerre  civile,"  r^pliqua  M.  Clemenceau,  "  prenons 
done  un  outsider,  Brisson  ou  Carnot."  Tins  is  the  version  of  M.  Clemen- 
ceau's  words,  which  practically  settled  the  destinies  of  France,  as  given  in 
the  compilation  entitled  Les  Coulisses  dtt  Boulangisme.  That  work  is  not 
an  accurate  record  of  contemporary  historj',  but  I  have  heard  from  one  of 
the  persons  present  that  this  was  the  expression  used  by  M.  Clemenceau. 


298  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

doubt  the  act  of  integrity  was  quoted  and  utilised  as  a 
proof  of  M.  Carnot's  fitness  to  hold  high  office  in  corrupt 
times  ;  but,  as  a  matter  of  history,  his  presidency  of  the 
French  Republic  was  conceived  in  a  newspaper  office  by 
a  conclave  of  wire-pullers  and  journalists  who  had  little 
sympathy  for  his  virtues. 

When  M.  Carnot's  election  became  inevitable,  not 
only  was  his  high  character  recognised  but  also  the  emi- 
nence of  his  name ;  so  when  the  choice  of  the  Assembly 
was  announced,  its  members  arose  and  saluted  with 
cheers  the  father  of  the  new  President,  himself  a  senator, 
old  Hippolyte  Carnot,  acclaimed  at  Versailles  as  the  son 
of  the  Organiser  of  Victory,  handing  on  a  famous  name 
to  adorn  the  chief  magistracy  fallen  into  disrepute,  and 
thus  to  raise  the  credit  of  France  before  Europe. 

Not  that  hereditary  military  genius  or  ambition  was 
imputed  to  M.  Sadi  Carnot.  The  very  suspicion  of  it 
would  have  alarmed  the  Assembly,  already  perturbed  at 
the  ominous  popularity  of  a  uniform.  Indeed  the  politi- 
cian chiefly  responsible  for  the  choice  cynically  declared 
that  he  had  furthered  the  nomination  of  M.  Carnot 
because  of  his  "perfect  insignificance."  M.  Clemenceau 
merely  meant  that  the  inheritor  of  a  name  not  only  re- 
nowned but  appealing  to  democratic  tradition  had,  when 
called  to  the  Council  of  Ministers,  performed  his  duties 
with  self-effacing  modesty,  thus  escaping  the  odium  which 
is  in  France  the  swift  penalty  of  conspicuousness.  He 
was  of  the  type  which,  happily  numerous,  is  the  salvation 
of  the  country,  though  rarely  found  in  political  circles  — 
the  type  of  Frenchman  never  talked  about  in  the  news- 
papers —  industrious,  cultivated,  scrupulous,  and  unobtru- 
sive.     He   suddenly   attained  the   supreme   power  at  a 


M.  SADI  CARNOT  299 


moment  when,  owing  to  the  causes  of  M.  Grevy's  fall,  it 
had  become  the  practice  to  publicly  criticise  the  most 
intimate  details  of  the  lives  of  the  inmates  of  the  Elysee  ; 
but  under  the  scrutiny  of  would-be  libellers  he  afforded 
no  occasion  for  reproach.  The  years  that  he  was  Presi- 
dent of  the  Republic  were  unexampled  in  France,  even 
at  times  of  revolution,  for  the  bitterness  of  political  pas- 
sion and  the  ferocious  licence  of  the  press.  The  Decora- 
tions scandal,  the  Boulangist  movement,  and  the  Panama 
affair  filled  the  entire  period  with  scurrility  and  recrimi- 
nation. If  a  political  leader  offended  an  opponent  the 
whole  of  his  past  existence  was  laid  bare,  and  strong  men 
were  driven  from  public  life,  not  for  errors  or  crimes  com- 
mitted in  their  public  capacity  or  condemned  by  tribunals 
of  the  law,  but  because  they  had  incurred  the  fury  of 
a  journalist  who  disinterred  the  secret  of  a  youthful 
offence. 

To  have  occupied  unscathed  the  most  conspicuous  posi- 
tion in  the  land,  while  it  was  swept  by  tempestuous 
seasons  of  disloyalty  and  of  delation,  was  a  striking  testi- 
mony to  the  blamelessness  of  a  life  which  was  singularly 
consistent.  While  the  nephew  of  Bonaparte  was  un- 
steadily throned  at  the  Tuileries,  the  grandson  of  Lazare 
Carnot,  commencing  his  career  as  an  engineer  like  his 
ancestor,  had  established  his  first  simple  home  on  a 
Savoyard  roadside,  in  the  region  once  a  trophy  of  the 
Organiser  of  Victory  and  now  almost  the  sole  title  to 
glory  of  the  Second  Empire.  His  subsequent  passage 
through  ministries  where  office  was  unblushingly  re- 
garded as  a  source  of  wealth  or  a  stepping-stone  to  dic- 
tatorship ^  brought   out  the  same   qualities  of   diligence, 

1  It  was  during  the  third  Freycinet  administration  in  1886,  in  which 


300  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  n 

conscientiousness,  and  modesty  which  he  had  displayed 
when  building  bridges  at  Annecy.  As  President  of  the 
Republic  the  worst  faults  his  critics  could  find  in  him 
were  his  precision  of  dress,  or  his  ceremonious  rigidity 
of  form,  which  were  only  expressions  of  his  desire  to  fill 
his  office  with  becoming  dignity  and  never  to  depart 
from  constitutional  reserve.  M.  Carnot  was  not  perhaps 
a  great  man,  but  he  was  the  worthy  bearer  of  a  great 
name,  thus  showing  himself  the  possessor  of  a  faculty 
rare  in  all  countries. 

In  the  year  before  his  death  there  were  two  minis- 
terial crises  in  which  M.  Carnot  was  accused  of  having 
taken  an  excessive  part.  It  was  the  sixth  year  of  his 
Presidency,  and  the  question  of  his  re-election  being 
already  debated,  the  opponents  of  the  renewal  of  his 
power  pointed  out  that  one  disadvantage  of  a  long  term 
of  office  was  that  it  induced  the  President  to  impose  his 
personal  views  in  the  conduct  of  affairs.  In  the  spring 
of  1893  the  Ribot  Cabinet  fell.  As  the  general  elections 
were  to  take  place  in  August,  the  chances  were  that  the 
Cabinet  chosen  in  April  would  last  until  then,  the  average 
life  of  a  ministry  being  eight  months.  Thus  the  new 
Minister  of  the  Interior  would  probably  "  make  the  elec- 
tions," a  process  which,  involving  the  manipulation  of 
all  the  centralised  machinery  of  France,  is  attractive  to 
politicians.  The  previous  elections,  in  1889,  when  Bou- 
langism  was  still  a  force,  had  been  adroitly  supervised 

M.  Carnot  was  for  the  second  time  Minister  of  Finance,  that  the  Minister 
of  Public  Works  (an  oflBce  which  M.  Camot  had  held  in  two  previous 
Cabinets)  committed  the  acts  in  connection  with  the  Panama  Loans  which 
subsequently  resulted  in  his  being  sent  to  penal  servitude  ;  and  General 
Boulanger  was  in  the  same  Government,  for  the  first  time  Minister  of 
War. 


CH.  II  THE   PRESIDENCY  OF  M.  CARNOT  301 

by  M.  Constans,  and  the  friends  of  that  enigmatic  states- 
man pressed  his  name  on  the  notice  of  the  President, 
who,  disregarding  them,  called  upon  M.  Dupuy  to  form 
a  cabinet.  The  friends  of  M.  Constans  compared  M. 
Carnot  with  Louis  XIV,,  and  M.  Dupuy,  a  school-master 
turned  politician,  superintended  the  elections,  which  took 
place  amid  the  profound  indifference  of  the  nation. 

The  result  of  the  polls  threw  little  light  upon  the 
feeling  of  the  electorate,  regarding  either  the  President 
or  his  Ministers,  or  the  legislative  needs  of  the  country, 
and  the  Dupuy  Cabinet,  having  survived  almost  the 
traditional  eight  months,  was  defeated,  for  no  particular 
reason,  on  the  reassembling  of  the  new  Chamber,  and 
resigned.  The  crisis  which  ensued  was  prolonged  owing, 
it  was  said,  to  the  attitude  of  M.  Carnot.  He  was  ac- 
cused of  opposing  the  will  of  the  majorities  in  the  two 
Chambers  in  trying  to  call  to  power  a  ministry  agreeable 
to  certain  groups  whose  votes  he  wished  to  secure  in  the 
National  Assembly  at  the  presidential  election  a  year 
later.  Abroad  as  well  as  in  France,  the  comment  was 
made  that,  contrary  to  the  usage  in  constitutional  gov- 
ernments, the  head  of  the  French  Executive  seemed  not 
only  to  have  a  policy  of  his  own,  but  to  claim  the  right 
to  impose  it  on  his  ministers.  That  the  President  was 
intriguing  with  a  view  to  re-election  we  shall  see  was 
false.  That  he  was  essaying  to  dictate  the  composition 
of  a  ministry  is  probably  true  only  in  the  sense  that  in 
the  formation  of  his  ninth  Cabinet  in  six  years,  he  felt 
that  his  experience  made  him  the  most  competent  per- 
son in  France  to  give  general  advice  on  the  choice  of 
ministers  likeliest  to  serve  the  interests  of  the  nation. 
The  comments  made  abroad  on  M.  Carnot's  alleged  un- 


THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE 


constitutional  attitude  showed  that  outside  France  the 
impression  prevails  that  parliamentary  government  in 
that  country  bears  some  resemblance  to  the  British  in- 
stitution after  which  it  was  modelled  ;  so  after  a  general 
election  it  might  be  thought  that  the  defeat  of  a  Prime 
Minister  in  the  new  Chamber  signified  that  the  electo- 
rate was  discontented  with  him  and  with  his  policy,  and 
desired  to  see  another  statesman  at  the  head  of  affairs 
whose  name,  having  been  re-echoed  in  every  polling- 
booth,  was  indicated  to  the  Chief  of  the  Executive. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  constituencies,  excepting  at 
an  election  of  quasi-plebiscitary  character,  such  as  those 
conducted  by  Gambetta  before  and  after  the  Seize  Mai, 
or  such  as  that  of  1889  might  have  been  but  for  General 
Boulanger's  flight,  never  take  into  consideration  the 
name  of  any  man  nor  the  merits  of  any  policy.  Dur- 
ing the  elections  of  1893  no  one  ever  heard  of  the 
Prime  Minister  or  of  his  successor,  M.  Casimir-P^rier, 
any  more  than  of  his  predecessors,  MM.  Ribot  and 
Loubet;  and  when  M.  Dupuy  was  dismissed  from  office 
on  the  assembling  of  the  new  Chamber,  it  did  not  mean 
that  he  had  lost  the  confidence  of  the  country,  for  he 
had  never  had  it  in  the  sense  in  which  the  word  is  under- 
stood in  England.  The  country  was  neither  pleased  nor 
displeased  either  when  he  resigned   office  in  November, 

1893,  or  when  he  became  Prime  Minister  again  in  May, 

1894.  Considering  that  each  successive  ministry  in 
France,  under  the  present  regime,  is  only  a  temporary 
expedient  doomed  to  give  way  in  most  cases  to  another 
similar  combination  a  few  months  later,  far  from  it 
being  imconstitutional  for  a  President  to  give  the  Prime 
Minister  of  his  choice  the  benefit  of  his  wisdom  in  the 


CH.  11         CONSTITUTIONAL  DUTY  OF  A  PRESIDENT  303 

selection  of  his  colleagues,  it  seems  to  be  distinctly  his 
duty  to  act  as  M.  Carnot  did.  At  the  same  time  it  is 
futile  duty,  for  whatever  quarter  of  the  Chamber  a 
ministry  is  recruited  from,  and  whatever  influences  are 
used  to  include  one  group  of  politicians  or  to  exclude 
another,  the  result  is  the  same ;  the  ministry,  in  nine 
cases  out  of  ten,  lasts  for  less  than  a  year,  and  the  iden- 
tical process  has  then  to  be  repeated.  Unless,  therefore, 
a  President  contemplates  a  coup  d'Stat,  a  project  which 
the  most  reckless  of  M.  Carnot's  critics  never  imputed 
to  him,  he  would  study  his  own  comfort  better  by  con- 
senting to  remain  a  passive  figure-head  raised  above  the 
petty  strife  of  recurring  ministerial  crises. 

When  M,  Casimir-Perier  finally  consented  to  form  a 
ministry  on  the  sixth  anniversary  of  M.  Carnot's  election, 
another  charge  was  brought  against  the  latter,  which  is 
worth  noticing  in  our  examination  of  the  nature  of  the 
President's  attributes.  We  have  seen  that  Frenchmen 
have  reason  for  believing  that  the  tenure  of  high  minis- 
terial office  is  the  ruin  of  reputation  and  of  popularity. 
M.  Casimir-Perier,  whose  election  to  the  Presidency  of 
the  Chamber  showed  that  he  had  favourably  impressed 
his  colleagues  with  his  hereditary  abilities,  was  marked 
out  as  a  possible  President  of  the  Republic ;  so  when  M. 
Carnot  pressed  upon  him  the  Premiership,  the  sagacious 
exclaimed  that  this  was  the  way  that  M,  Gr^vy  had  got 
rid  of  Gambetta ;  but  the  uncharitable  sages  who  im- 
puted similar  guile  to  M.  Carnot,  only  showed  how 
valueless  are  precedent  and  analogy  in  French  political 
forecast.  M.  Casimir-Perier  became  Prime  Minister, 
and  failed  to  remain  in  office  for  even  half  a  year ;  yet 
a  month  after  his  dismissal  this  defeated  Minister  was 


301  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

elected  to  succeed  the  President,  struck  down  by  an 
assassin.  It  remained  for  one  of  his  colleagues  to  clear 
the  memory  of  M.  Carnot  from  the  imputation  of  an 
ignoble  wile.  M.  Spuller,  Gambetta's  Under-Secretary 
at  the  Quai  d'Orsay  in  1881,  became  Minister  of  Educa- 
tion in  the  Casimir-Perier  Cabinet,  after  declining  to 
form  a  ministry  himself.  Thus  brought  into  confidential 
relations  with  the  President,  he  heard  from  his  lips  that 
he  had  definitely  resolved  to  refuse  a  nomination  for  a 
second  term,  on  constitutional  as  well  as  on  personal 
grounds.  These  words,  spoken  privily  and  not  for  pub- 
lic ejffect,  were  given  to  the  world  at  the  moment  when, 
had  he  been  let  live,  M.  Carnot  would  have  resumed  the 
character  of  a  private  citizen,  which  he  knew  how  to 
illustrate  as  well  as  the  highest  civic  rank.^ 

IV 

Three  days  after  M.  Carnot's  murder  at  Lyons  M. 
Casimir-Perier  became  President  of  the  Republic.  Al- 
though the  sudden  vacancy  in  June,  1894,  was  not  an- 
ticipated, the  approaching  term  of  the  septennate  was 
preparing  men's  minds  for  a  presidential  election,  and  it 
was  thought  that  if  M.  Carnot  did  not  stand  M.  Casimir- 
Perier  would  be  the  strongest  candidate.  No  one  was 
surprised,  therefore,  that  he  obtained  an  absolute  major- 
ity in  the  National  Assembly  at  the  first  ballot.  M. 
Brisson  indeed  on  this  occasion  secured  nearly  two  hun- 
dred votes,  and  the  Socialists  who  supported  that  austere 
politician  afterwards  denounced  the  new  President  as  the 
elect  of  the  Reactionaries ;  but  if  aU  the  Reactionary  votes 

1  Au  Jilinistere  de  V Instruction  Pxiblique,  par  Eugfene  Spuller,  1894, 


CH.  n  M.  CASIMIR-PfeRIER  305 

had  been  transferred  to  M.  Brisson,  M.  Casimir-Perier 
would  still  have  headed  the  poll.  He  thus  commenced 
his  Presidency,  the  nominee  not  of  a  mere  coalition  but 
supported  by  the  majority  of  Republicans. 

Like  M.  Carnot  the  new  President  was  the  representa- 
tive of  a  distinguished  name.  A  family  which  in  our 
country  had  been  eminent  and  wealthy  as  long  as  the 
Periers  have  been  in  France,  would  have  attained  a  high 
rank  in  the  peerage.  When,  before  the  Revolution,  they 
became  great  landowners  there  were  English  families,  now 
of  ducal  rank,  only  just  emerging  from  the  class  of  coun- 
try squires.  The  owner  of  the  Chateau  of  Vizille,  where 
the  Assembly  of  the  Etats  du  Dauphine  in  1788  preluded 
the  meeting  of  the  States-General  at  Versailles,  had  a 
brother  who  died  an  archbishop  under  Louis  XVIII. ,  one 
son  who  was  a  peer  of  France,  and  another  Prime  Minis- 
ter under  Louis  Philippe.  The  son  of  that  statesman 
was  an  ambassador,  and  was  the  father  of  the  President 
of  1894.  Nevertheless,  such  are  the  peculiarities  of  the 
French  social  scale  that  this  family,  which  was  of  high 
consideration  when  the  ancestors  of  the  nobility  of  the 
First  Empire  and  of  the  Restoration  were  in  many  cases 
of  humble  condition,  was  regarded  as  being  the  type  and 
pattern  of  the  French  bourgeoisie. 

The  French  bourgeois  has  fallen  on  evil  days.  After 
having  made  the  Revolution  of  1789,  and  repeating  it,  in 
miniature,  in  1830  with  ampler  profit  to  himself,  he  no 
longer  enjoys  public  prestige  at  the  close  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  descendants  of  the  revolutionary 
possessors  of  national  property,  and  even  of  the  men  of 
the  July  Monarchy,  sometimes  style  themselves  "  sons  of 
the  crusaders  "  ;   whereas  their  less  prosperous  kinsmen, 


306  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

who  regard  politics  as  a  swift  road  to  fortune,  court  uni- 
versal suffrage  in  the  guise  of  "sons  of  peasants."  The 
scions  of  the  middle-classes,  ennobled  by  Napoleon  and 
the  restored  Bourbons,  are  as  disdainful  of  the  bourgeoisie 
as  are  the  representatives  of  the  courtiers  and  the  lawyers 
of  the  Old  Regime;  while  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale  the 
Radical  Socialists,  like  the  Anarchists,  use  "  bourgeois  "  as 
a  term  of  reprobation  to  designate  men  who  do  not  get 
their  living  by  manual  toil  or  by  agitation.  A  "  labour  " 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons  once  related  to  me  his 
experiences  at  a  Trade  Union  Congress  in  Paris.  He  said 
that  he  had  gone  to  France  entirely  ignorant  of  the  lan- 
guage, but  to  his  last  day  he  should  never  forget  one 
word  repeated  in  every  sentence  of  the  French  delegates' 
speeches  with  every  intonation  of  hatred  and  contempt  — 
the  word  "  bourgeois."  This  estimable  Englishman,  though 
representing  thousands  of  working  men,  was  in  appearance 
and  in  mode  of  thought  a  typical  bourgeois,  from  the  French 
point  of  view — as  dissimilar  to  his  as  the  Carmagnole,  with 
which  his  French  colleagues  terrified  him,  was  to  the  pious 
exercises  which  he  was  wont  to  conduct  at  his  Sunday 
School  at  home. 

It  is  necessary  to  understand  this  point,  which  will  be 
referred  to  again,  in  order  to  comprehend  the  force  of  the 
attacks  upon  M.  Casimir-Perier  from  the  morrow  of  his 
election,  when  the  possession  of  an  honoured  name,  asso- 
ciated with  the  conquest  of  popular  liberty,  was  turned  into 
a  reproach.  It  is  typical  of  the  insignificance  into  which 
the  French  noblesse  has  fallen,  that  the  old  denunciation 
of  "  aristocrat "  was  rarely  used  by  his  assailants.  Occa- 
sionally a  sneer  at  his  kinship  with  persons  bearing  titles, 
or  at  his  support  by  the  Royalists  in  the  Congress,  was 


THE  BOURGEOISIE  307 


heard,  or  a  suggestion  that  as  the  Orleanists  had  become 
Legitimists,  so  would  the  grandson  of  Louis  Philippe's 
Minister  receive  the  Ancient  Regime ;  but  for  the  most 
part  the  representative  of  a  family  proud  of  a  century 
and  a  half  of  high  renown  in  the  bourgeoisie  was  made 
the  victim  of  the  artificial  antipathy  with  which  the 
modern  school  of  socialism  regards  that  class.  M.  Casi- 
mir-Perier  was  not,  however,  denounced  by  theoretical 
objectors  to  the  bourgeois  principle  solely  because  of  his 
ancestral  connection  with  the  middle-class  Monarchy  of 
July.  He  was  one  of  the  owners  of  a  coal-field  notorious 
for  its  strikes,  and  it  was  as  a  capitalist  that  day  after 
day  he  was  made  the  object  of  attacks  moulded  by  the 
Socialist  leaders  in  form  to  please  every  sect  of  discontent, 
from  the  anti-semites  and  anarchists  of  the  century's  end, 
to  the  inheritors  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Jacobins. 

M.  Casimir-Perier  was  the  victim  of  the  vain  theory 
of  the  impersonality  of  the  President.  His  predecessor, 
though  he  studied  to  efface  himself  in  his  office,  could 
not  make  it  forgotten  for  a  day  that  he  was  the  grandson 
of  "  Pere  la  Victoire,"  and  the  grandson  of  the  Minister 
of  1831  was  marked  out  as  a  possible  President  long 
before  the  tragedy  of  Lyons,  because  he  too  bore  a  his- 
toric name  with  conspicuous  force  of  character.  It  was 
therefore  by  a  curious  inconsistency  that  the  possession  of 
that  name  chiefly  made  his  position  untenable.  Beneath 
an  exterior  of  resolute  sturdiness,  he  had  not  the  calm 
temperament,  free  from  self-consciousness,  of  M.  Carnot, 
essential  for  the  chief  of  a  democracy  which  is  not  strik- 
ingly qualified  to  use  the  privilege  of  unlicenced  printing. 
His  habit,  therefore,  of  perusing  the  journals  containing 
gross  libels  on  his  character  and  incitements  to  violence 


808  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

kept  constantly  before  his  eyes  the  causes  which  might 
render  him  unpopular.  Thus  he  was  driven  into  resign- 
ing his  office  after  six  months'  tenure  of  it,  because  it  was 
evident  that,  however  constitutionally  he  discharged  its 
functions,  public  opinion  refused  to  contemplate  the  possi- 
bility of  a  President  of  the  Republic  being  an  impersonal 
head  of  the  State.  Whether  he  committed  an  unpatriotic 
blunder,  or  saved  the  country  from  civil  war  by  hastily 
descending  from  the  summit  of  Republican  ambition  as 
soon  as  he  had  attained  it,  we  need  not  discuss.  The 
probability  is  that  his  brief  experience  led  him  to  the  con- 
clusion, not  rare  in  France,  that  the  Presidency  is  a  vain 
office,  and  that  within  certain  limits  it  does  not  matter 
who  occupies  it ;  but  that  in  face  of  the  national  tendency 
to  invest  its  occupant  with  distinctive  attributes,  it  is  bet- 
ter that  it  should  be  filled  by  a  citizen  of  unemphatic  char- 
acter and  unsensitive  temperament. 

Had  the  Chamber  given  him  the  support  due  to  a  con- 
stitutional Chief  of  the  State  from  the  representatives  of 
the  nation,  he  might  have  endured  until  his  persecutors 
were  weary ;  but  the  popular  House  gave  him  to  under- 
stand that  it  had  no  intention  of  protecting  the  President 
from  outrage.  For  defaming  M.  Casimir-Perier  in  a 
Socialist  print  a  journalist  had  been  tried  and  sent  to 
prison.  Forthwith  a  turbulent  quarter  of  Paris  sent  him 
to  Parliament,  and  a  motion  was  proposed  in  the  Chamber 
for  his  release,  involving  the  reversal  of  a  sentence  duly 
passed  by  a  judicial  tribunal.  The  motion,  instead  of 
being  opposed  by  all  excepting  the  small  Socialist  group, 
was  defeated  by  only  a  slender  majority.  It  was  not 
merely  a  disposition  to  encourage  contempt  for  the  Chief 
of  the  State  that  induced  the  Chamber  so  nearly  to  vote 


CH.  II  THE   CHAMBER  AND  THE  PRESIDENT  309 

impunity  to  his  defamer.  It  is  the  constant  tendency  of 
the  French  legislature  to  arrogate  the  functions  of  a  Con- 
vention and  to  override  the  principle  of  the  separation  of 
the  powers  —  a  sure  sign  of  the  unsuitableness  of  parlia- 
mentary institutions  or  the  French  national  character.  A 
further  attempt  in  the  same  direction,  when  the  majority 
of  the  Chamber  voted  for  the  revision  of  a  judgment  of 
the  Conseil  d'Etat  in  the  matter  of  certain  State  agree- 
ments with  the  railway  companies,  caused  the  retirement 
of  the  second  Dupuy  ministry,  and  M.  Casimir-Perier 
seized  the  occasion  of  this  crisis  to  address  to  the  Presi- 
dents of  the  Houses  of  Legislature  a  letter  resigning  his 
high  office,  indicating  some  of  the  reasons  why  he  found 
its  further  custody  intolerable.^  The  general  purport  of 
the  message  was  that  the  President  had  too  many  respon- 
sibilities and  not  enough  powers.  The  Socialists'  com- 
ment upon  it  was  that  there  was  logically  no  middle  course 
between  the  abolition  of  the  presidency  and  its  conversion 
into  a  dictatorship  ;  a  dilemma  which  would  be  irresistible 
if  logic  had  any  relation  with  the  science  of  government. 

Even  when  a  presidential  election  is  imminent,  nothing 
occurs  resembling  the  preliminary  campaign  of  candidates 
for  the  presidency  of  the  United  States.  When,  there- 
fore, a  vacancy  suddenly  occurred  six  years  before  the 
country  anticipated  a  change,  to  fill  it  in  forty-eight  hours 
was  necessarily  a  matter  of  hazard.  M.  Brisson  was  at 
the  disposal  of  the  nation  for  the  fourth  time,  but  the 
belief  that  he  was  now  favoured  by  the  Socialists  did  not 
improve  his  chances.  The  most  serious  competitors 
seemed  to  be  M.  Waldeck- Rousseau  and  M.  Godefroy 
Cavaignac.  The  former,  an  advocate  of  talent,  had  been 
1  January  15,  1896. 


810  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

called  to  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  at  an  early  age  by 
Gambetta,  when  older  men  refused  to  serve  in  the  Grand 
Ministdre,  and  again  in  the  second  Ferry  Cabinet,  which 
survived  the  phenomenal  span  of  two  years.  Subse- 
quently he  had  withdrawn  from  active  politics,  and  hav- 
ing been  professionally  retained  in  the  Panama  trials,  it 
was  thought  that  he  possibly  possessed,  for  an  impartial 
Chief  of  the  State,  too  intimate  a  knowledge  of  the  char- 
acter of  politicians  who  might  be  designated  for  ministe- 
rial rank.  M.  Cavaignac,  had  he  been  chosen  to  succeed 
M.  Carnot  and  M.  Casimir-Perier,  would  have  established 
a  tradition  that  the  presidency  was  reserved  for  members 
of  dynasties  which  had  served  the  commonwealth  since 
the  Revolution.  The  grandson,  like  M.  Carnot,  of  a  regi- 
cide member  of  the  Convention,  he  was  the  son  of  the 
General  who  had  his  hour  of  glory  and  popularity  before 
his  defeat  by  Louis  Bonaparte  at  the  plebiscite  for  the 
presidency  in  1848 ;  and  as  a  boy  he  had  dramatically 
defied  the  Second  Empire  when,  at  a  public  distribution 
of  prizes,  he  refused  to  accept  a  laurel  wreath  from  the 
hands  of  the  Prince  Imperial.  Had  the  Presidency  been 
vacant  two  years  earlier  he  would  have  been  called  by 
acclamation  to  fill  it,  for  during  the  debates  on  the  Pan- 
ama scandal  in  1893,  when  public  opinion  was  dis- 
comforted by  the  withdrawal  from  justice  of  the  most 
prominent  politicians  involved  in  it,  he  made  a  speech  at 
the  Palais  Bourbon  expressing  with  such  sober  eloquence 
the  prevailing  sentiment  of  outraged  honesty  of  the  bulk 
of  the  French  nation,  that  the  Chamber  with  enthusiasm 
ordered  it  to  be  placarded  in  every  commune  of  France.^ 
The  triumph  was  too  conspicuous.  Had  M,  Carnot's 
1  February  8,  1893. 


CH.  II  THE   DISABILITIES  OF  FAME  311 

meritorious  probity  when  Minister  of  Finance  received 
equal  attention  and  applause,  it  would  have  drawn  down 
upon  him  the  jealousy  which  closed  the  gates  of  the 
Elysee  upon  M.  Cavaignac. 


The  choice  of  the  National  Assembly,  convoked  at 
Versailles  on  January  17,  1895,  fell  on  M.  F^lix  Faure, 
and  it  is  probable  that  on  the  previous  New  Year's  Day, 
even  in  Paris,  in  the  heart  of  political  life,  not  one 
person  in  a  thousand  knew  him  even  by  name,  although 
he  was  Minister  of  Marine.  It  does  not  follow  in  France 
that  because  a  public  man  is  unknown  to  the  public  he  is 
therefore  obscure.  It  is  true  that  in  the  frequent  changes 
of  Cabinets  many  politicians,  who  flit  through  ministerial 
office  without  leaving  a  trace  of  their  passage,  are  obscure 
men;  but  aptitude  and  talent  in  Ministers  are  some- 
times unrecognised,  so  profound  is  the  indifference  of 
the  French  public  for  the  machinery  of  government. 
M.  Faure  belonged  to  a  class  unfortunately  rare  in 
France,  that  of  the  successful  and  intelligent  man  of 
business,  who  takes  an  active  part  in  politics.  With  a 
few  well-known  exceptions,  the  representatives  in  Parlia- 
ment of  the  great  commercial  centres  of  France  are 
generally  doctors,  lawyers,  professors,  and  journalists; 
but  the  electors  of  Havre  are  wont  to  delegate  their 
interests  to  their  substantial  citizens,  and  if  M.  Felix 
Faure  was  unknown  to  the  French  nation,  he  enjoyed  the 
best  graces  of  his  fellow-townsmen.  Eight  months 
before  his  elevation  to  the  supreme  power,  though  twelve 
years  earlier  he  had  been  an  Under-Secretary,   he   had 


312  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  u 

never  attained  Cabinet  rank,  which  is  not  difficult  of 
access  under  the  Third  Republic;  or  perhaps  one  ought 
rather  to  say  that  it  is  difficult  of  access  for  business  men 
of  solid  qualities  who  help  to  keep  France  in  the  van  of 
nations,  and  countervail  the  passing  pranks  of  profes- 
sional politicians  in  the  ministries. 

The  sudden  apparition  of  a  President  of  this  unwonted 
type,  who  represented  no  dynastic  hierarchy  like  his 
immediate  predecessors,  no  doctrinaire  tradition  like 
M.  Grevy,  who  had  neither  the  military  prestige  of 
Marshal  MacMahon  nor  the  European  renown  of  M. 
Thiers,  took  the  fancy  of  the  public.  An  agreeable 
presence,  gracing  a  blithe  alertness  in  performing  his 
novel  functions  with  unaffected  joy,  made  M.  Faure  a 
popular  hero  before  the  detractors  of  M.  Casimir-Perier 
had  time  to  realise  that  he  was  a  member  of  the  same 
oppressive  and  selfish  class.  The  antipathies  of  the 
French  public  are  short-lived,  excepting  in  the  case  of 
persons  held  responsible  for  military  disaster,  like  Napo- 
leon III.,  and,  in  a  smaller  way,  M.  Jules  Ferry.  Had 
M.  Casimir-Perier  not  resigned,  the  violence  of  his  per- 
secutors would  have  caused  a  reaction  in  his  favour,  for 
the  daily  baiting  of  the  President  had  become  wearisome, 
and  the  populace  of  Paris  was  ready  to  beckon  on  the 
nation  to  hail  with  enthusiasm  any  occupant  of  the  presi- 
dential chair ;  for  the  yearning  of  the  French  to  acclaim  a 
chief  is  chronic. 

When  the  improvised  popularity  of  the  new  President 
became  a  national  creed,  the  dethroners  of  his  prede- 
cessor felt  that  their  position  as  leaders  of  thought  was 
imperilled  by  the  ascendancy  of  another  bourgeois.  Tliat 
term,   though   its   meaning   is  less  definite  than  when, 


CH.  n  M.   FELIX  FAURE  813 

under  the  Old  Regime,  it  connoted  the  men  of  the  great 
mediate  class  which,  without  privilege  or  rank,  had  office 
and  wealth,  has  in  modern  times  a  signification  much 
clearer  than  any  approximate  English  synonym.  Now 
that  the  noblesse  no  longer  exists,  and  the  clergy  is  no 
longer  an  estate,  while  the  passage  of  the  whole  nation 
through  the  army  has  abolished  the  military  caste,  every 
one  is  a  bourgeois  who  does  not  gain  his  living  by  the 
labour  of  his  hands :  though  Socialist  writers  extend,  as 
we  have  seen,  the  non-bourgeois  ranks  in  order  to  include 
themselves,  by  defining  the  bourgeois  as  one  who  does 
not  earn  his  bread  either  by  manual  toil  or  by  agitation. 
But  at  whichever  end  of  the  social  scale  we  artificially 
limit  the  bourgeois  class,  either  by  counting  as  pro- 
letarians politicians  who  utilise  the  blouse  as  a  lucrative 
symbol  rather  than  as  an  article  of  apparel,  or  by  adopting 
the  fiction  that  an  order  of  nobles  still  exists  in  France, 
no  elimination  can  ever  exclude  from  the  bourgeoisie  the 
respectable  section  of  society  which  M.  Felix  Faure  has 
illustrated.  This  would  seem  to  be  obvious  to  all  the 
world;  but  when  it  was  seen  that  a  capitalist  and  an 
employer  of  labour  was  winning  the  good  graces  of  all 
grades  of  society,  it  was  clear  that  if  his  success  could 
not  be  checked  it  ought  to  be  expounded. 

An  authorised  spokesman  of  the  Radical  party  was 
M.  Pochon,  the  deputy  for  Bourg-en-Bresse,  and  he  had 
a  further  title  to  speak  in  the  name  of  the  population  as 
President  of  the  Conseil-General  of  the  department  of 
the  Ain,  which  stretches  from  Lyons  to  Geneva.  At  its 
first  meeting  after  the  election  of  M.  Faure  he  thus 
moralised:  "We  have  the  right  from  past  experience 
to  beware  of  the  bourgeoisie,  which  has  learned  nothing 


314  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  u 

from  the  lessons  of  this  century.  It  was  no  longer 
possible  for  us  Republicans  to  allow  that  class  to  resume 
the  direction  of  public  affairs,  after  our  unlucky  essay 
with  a  president  whose  family  was  known  to  history. 
That  was  why  the  democracy  chose  in  its  own  ranks  the 
successor  of  M.  Casimir-Perier,  convinced  that  M.  Felix 
Faure  would  never  belie  his  origin."  ^ 

Now  a  Frenchman  who  denies  that  M.  Felix  Faure  is 
a  member  of  the  bourgeoisie  is  capable  of  anything.  It 
is  not  surprising,  therefore,  to  learn  that  the  stern 
democrat,  who  boasted  that  the  people  in  their  distrust 
of  the  bourgeois  class  had  elevated  one  of  themselves  to 
the  chief  magistracy,  was  not  only  a  bourgeois  himself 
but  had  done  all  in  his  power  to  prevent  M.  Faure 's 
election.  At  Versailles  M.  Faure  was  opposed  by 
M.  Pochon  and  his  group  as  a  danger  to  the  democracy, 
and  they  voted  to  a  man  for  a  genuine  son  of  toil, 
M.  Brisson,  whose  father  was  an  attorney  at  Bourges  and 
who  was  himself  a  member  of  the  Parisian  bar.  The 
malcontents  unable  to  carry  their  own  candidate,  and 
knowing  that  the  country  was  tired  of  presidential 
unpopularity,  accepted  with  disingenuous  grace  the  suc- 
cess obtained  by  the  new  President  as  the  triumph  of 
their  doctrine.  It  is  therefore  necessary  to  examine 
closely  M.  Faure's  proletarian  titles. 

The  timorous,  who  dread  the  advent  to  power  of  the 
democracy,  will  be  reassured  at  knowing  that  the  Radical- 
Socialists  proclaim  M.  Faure  to  be  by  his  life  and  origin 
its  incarnation.  His  parents,  though  not  rich,  had  not 
to  labour  with  their  hands,  and  the  future  President, 
instead  of  being  educated  at  a  public  elementary  school  as 

1  Conseil- General  de  VAin,  Seance  de  Vouverture,  22  Avrily  1896. 


CH.  II  THE  LEGEND  OF  A  NEW  PRESIDENT  316 

befitted  a  son  of  the  people,  was  sent  first  to  a  suburban 
college  of  some  pretension,  and  later  to  England  to  learn 
the  language.  On  his  return,  being  apprenticed  to  a 
tanner  at  Amboise,  he  wore  a  workman's  costume,  as  the 
sons  of  the  rich  often  do  when  learning  a  business  prac- 
tically. He  then  married  the  heiress  of  a  wealthy  man 
who  died  a  senator,  and  placing  his  capital  at  Havre,  he 
attained  social  and  commercial  rank  in  that  seaport,  after 
the  war  taking  a  valiant  part  in  the  suppression  of  the 
Commune  with  a  vigour  not  calculated  to  endear  him  to 
the  revilers  of  the  bourgeoisie.  The  theoretical  objectors 
to  the  bourgeois  principle  know  very  well  that  the  strict 
application  of  their  theories  might  uncomfortably  affect 
their  own  position.  They,  therefore,  arbitrarily  label 
this  public  man  as  a  bourgeois  and  that  as  a  proletarian, 
without  reference  to  his  social  rank  or  even  his  political 
views.  A  similar  process  was  practised  a  hundred  years 
before  in  Brittany,  when  the  mere  denunciation  as  a 
Chouan  or  a  Jacobin,  according  as  the  Blues  or  Whites 
prevailed  in  the  region,  was  a  sentence  of  death;  but 
M.  Casimir-Perier,  its  most  conspicuous  victim  in  recent 
times,  was  driven  to  suicide  rather  than  to  execution  by 
the  new  philosophers  with  their  new  definition. 

All  this  tendency  to  classify  each  individual  President 
is  additional  proof  that  it  is  contrary  to  the  instincts  of 
the  nation  to  regard  the  Chief  of  the  State  as  an  imper- 
sonal figure  representing  France.^     M.  Felix  Faure  was 

1  M.  Camot  had  even  to  rebuke  his  fellow-citizens,  who  assumed  the 
attitude  of  respectful  subjects  on  his  presidential  journeys.  At  Chamb^ry 
on  September  4,  1892,  the  anniversary  of  the  foundation  of  the  Republic, 
M.  Horteur,  Deputy  and  Chairman  of  the  Conseil-G^n^ral,  having  re- 
ferred to  him  in  laudatory  terms,  the  President  replied:  "Je  vous 
remercie  infiniment  de  I'hommage  que  vous  rendez  k  la  R^publique,  mais 


316  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

the  first  President  of  the  Republic  who  had  no  tradition 
connected  with  his  name,  but  from  the  morrow  of  his 
election  the  Parisian  press  and  public  began  to  invest  him 
with  legend.  The  Proven9al  origin  of  his  family  pro- 
voked comparisons  with  that  of  M.  Thiers;  spirited 
controversies  arose  as  to  the  precise  site  of  his  modest 
birthplace  in  an  industrial  quarter  of  the  capital;  his 
suburban  school-master  was  made  the  subject  of  mono- 
graphs; his  practical  method  of  learning  the  trade  of  a 
fellmonger  produced  the  myth  that  he  had  begun  life  as 
a  journeyman  tanner,  and  portraits  of  a  needlessly  toil- 
stained  workman  were  rapturously  circulated ;  while  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  prosperous  classes,  and  to  show 
how  fitted  he  was  to  impress  foreign  potentates  with  the 
amenity  of  France,  anecdotes  were  related  of  his  sporting 
prowess  in  Hungary,  where  his  affability  had  inspired  an 
innkeeper  to  foretell  a  brilliant  future  for  him.  In  fact, 
all  the  lore  that  is  formed  around  the  founder  of  a 
dynasty  was  made  ready  as  though  this  respectable  mer- 
chant of  Havre  were  a  new  Bonaparte. 

VI 

It  is  not  possible  that  a  country  governed  for  centuries 
and  grown  great  under  the  absolute  sway  of  kings,  which 
it  only  dispensed  with  to  take  refuge  in  the  absolute  rule 
of  a  military  dictator,  should  realise  that  the  Chief  of 
the  State  does  not  govern.     Thus  we  find  the  President 

vous  me  voyez  un  peu  pein6  des  ^loges  particuliers  que  vous  ra'avez 
adress6s.  II  n'y  a  pas  d'homme  en  France,  il  n'y  a  que  des  institu- 
tions." Nevertheless  when  five  years  later  another  President  visited 
that  unemotional  city  the  solitary  cry  of  the  calm  spectators  was,  "  Vive 
F^lix  Faure," 


CH.  11  ANOMALIES  OF  PRESIDENTIAL  OFFICE  317 

of  the  Republic,  in  the  performance  of  the  functions 
prescribed  for  him  by  the  written  Constitution,  in  the 
anomalous  position  of  a  Chief  of  the  State  whose  name  is 
kept  constantly  before  the  public  in  a  manner  unknown 
in  constitutional  monarchies;  while  he  is  subjected  to 
unwritten  restrictions  of  a  puerile  character  intended  to 
curb  dictatorial  aspirations,  but  only  having  the  effect 
of  attenuating  the  picturesqueness  of  Parisian  life. 

For  example,  the  Constitution  makes  it  his  duty  to 
preside  at  all  national  solemnities;^  but  if  he  were  to 
repair  to  them  in  a  gilded  coach  or  on  horseback  and 
attired  in  a  brilliant  uniform,  he,  would  be  accused  of 
meditating  a  coup  d^Stat,  though  the  Constitution  is 
silent  regarding  his  apparel  and  his  equipage.  The 
President  is  thus  constrained  to  review  the  troops  at 
Longchamp  on  the  14th  of  July  in  a  costume  associated 
by  Parisians,  when  they  see  it  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne, 
with  the  guests  at  the  wedding  feasts  of  the  humbler 
classes,  which  are  held  in  that  pleasaunce.  When,  there- 
fore, nature  has  endowed  the  Chief  of  the  State  with  an 
unimposing  presence,  which  requires  tradition  or  attire 
to  make  it  impressive,  the  precautions  thus  taken  to  pre- 
vent an  individual  obtaining  too  great  an  influence  over 
the  crowd  sometimes  defeat  themselves.  For  the  French 
public  delights  in  panache,  and  when  the  nodding  plumes 
and  the  gold  lace  are  seen  adorning  a  minor  actor  in  the 
spectacle,  the  mob,  which  would  have  had  no  idea  of 
acclaiming  with  kingly  titles  the  President  merely  be- 
cause he  was  strikingly  arrayed,  turns  to  the  prancing 
captain,  crying,  "This  is  the  hero  who  should  have  led 
our  summer  holiday."  That  was  the  origin  of  the 
1  L.C.  25  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  3. 


318  THE  CmEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

Boulangist  legend  in  1886,  when  the  democracy  of  the 
capital  turned  its  back  on  the  notarial  decorum  of  M. 
Grevy  to  hail  the  glittering  uniform  which  a  showy 
charger  bore  down  the  Champs  Elysees  at  the  head  of 
the  garrison  of  Paris. 

The  prerogative  of  receiving  the  diplomatic  representa- 
tives of  the  powers  ^  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  function,  the 
importance  of  which  the  President  is  permitted  to  exag- 
gerate. In  a  monarchy  like  England,  when  the  sovereign 
receives  a  newly  accredited  envoy,  he  is  welcomed  with 
impressive  dignity  and  sometimes  with  a  cordiality 
enhanced  from  the  kinship  of  his  august  master  with 
our  royal  family;  but  the  only  knowledge  the  British 
public  has  or  desires  to  have  of  the  event  is  gathered 
from  the  abrupt  Court  Circular  which  records  it  in  a 
single  line  between  the  monarch's  daily  promenades  and 
the  knighting  of  a  provincial  mayor.  In  Republican 
France,  after  an  ambassador  has  been  received  at  the 
Elysee,  every  citizen  who  has  a  sou  to  buy  a  newspaper 
can  read  every  detail  of  the  ceremonial  as  well  as  the  dis- 
courses exchanged  between  the  President  of  the  Republic 
and  the  envoy  of  his  royal  or  imperial  colleague:  their 
formality  or  warmth  is  discussed,  and  next  day  every 
politician  from  Brest  to  Marseilles  founds  forecasts  of  the 
future  of  Europe  upon  the  recorded  duration  of  the  pri- 
vate conversation  of  the  two  personages,  before  the  chief 
of  the  Protocole  conveyed  the  new-comer  back  to  his 
embassy.  Again,  it  is  the  practice  of  crowned  heads  to 
notify  to  the  rulers  of  the  powers  the  births,  marriages, 
and  deaths  which  take  place  in  their  illustrious  families. 
In  our  country  no  one  outside  the  Court  is  aware  of  the 
1  L.C.  26  F^vrier,  1875,  art.  3. 


CH.  II         DIPLOMATIC  INSTINCT  OF  THE  FRENCH  319 

custom;  but  in  the  French  Republic,  each  time  that  the 
President  receives  such  a  notification,  the  journals 
announce  it  together  with  the  text  of  his  reply  of  con- 
gratulation or  of  condolence  in  a  way  to  habituate  the 
public  to  the  idea  that  the  position  in  the  European 
hierarchy  of  their  first  citizen  is  similar  to  that  of  the 
Emperor  Francis  Joseph  or  of  King  Leopold. 

French  is  not  the  language  of  diplomacy  for  nothing, 
and  every  citizen  who  takes  an  interest  in  affairs  believes 
himself  a  master  of  the  diplomatic  art.  Hence  we  find 
the  opposite  state  of  things  to  that  which  exists  in 
England,  where  even  in  the  capital  the  ardent  politicians 
of  the  street,  who  criticise  Home  Secretaries  and  compare 
Chancellors  of  the  Exchequer,  know  not  the  names  of  the 
envoys  of  France  or  of  Germany  within  our  gates,  save  at 
seasons  of  international  commotion.  The  Boulevards  are 
in  equal  ignorance  regarding  the  personality  of  the 
Ministers  of  the  Interior  and  of  Finance,  except  at  epochs 
of  "  parliamentary  scandal, "  but  the  British  or  the  Rus- 
sian ambassador  is  a  familiar  Parisian  institution. 

This  peculiar  if  superficial  interest  assumed  by  the 
French  public  in  foreign  relations  is  not  sufficiently  taken 
into  account  by  those  who  deplore  the  extravagances  of 
the  inferior  journals  of  the  Boulevards  in  discussing 
exterior  affairs ;  and  it  is  the  same  popular  instinct  which 
is  flattered  by  all  that  tends  to  put  the  President  of  the 
Republic  on  an  equality  with  the  sovereigns  of  other 
European  nations.  By  the  Constitution  of  1875  ^  he  has 
the  power  to  negotiate  and  to  ratify  treaties ;  but  treaties 
of  peace  and  of  commerce,  and  those  which  affect  the 
finances  of  the  State,  are  only  effective  after  being  voted 
1  L.C.  16  Juillet,  1875,  art.  8. 


820  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  n 

by  the  two  Chambers.  It  is  to  be  observed  that  treaties 
of  alliance  are  not  included  among  those  which  require 
the  ratification  of  the  Chambers,  and  during  the  long 
period  of  "understanding"  between  France  and  Russia 
the  question  was  constantly  discussed  in  the  journals 
whether  President  Carnot  had  or  had  not  actually  con- 
cluded a  treaty  with  the  Tsar.  The  highest  authorities 
declare  that  a  treaty  concluded  thus  secretly  without 
communication  to  Parliament  could  not  be  very  serious 
in  its  scope,  as  there  are  few  treaties  of  alliance  which 
do  not  in  their  result  affect  the  finances  of  the  contracting 
states.^  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  whatever  its  dan- 
ger, the  idea  of  the  President  treating  with  a  sovereign, 
and  especially  with  an  autocratic  monarch,  without  refer- 
ring to  the  Chambers,  is  far  from  unpopular  in  France. 
The  French  love  personal  rule,  and  amid  much  that  was 
unflattering  to  France  in  the  Franco-Russian  demonstra- 
tions before  the  death  of  M.  Carnot,  a  sentiment  of 
national  pride  was  made  manifest  in  the  exaggerated 
pictures  circulated  of  the  President  grouped  with  the 
Tsar,  whom  he  never  saw,  which  suggested  that  the  Chief 
of  the  Republic  counted  for  as  much  in  the  union  of  the 
two  powers  as  the  autocrat  of  Russia.  This  idea  fol- 
lowed M.  Carnot  to  the  tomb,  and  Republicans,  who 
believed  that  there  was  even  then  an  alliance  between 


1  Pierre,  Traite  de  Droit  Politique :  *'  Des  trait6s  diplomatlques."  The 
leading  case  of  a  treaty  concluded  by  the  President  of  the  French  Repub- 
lic, under  the  Constitution  of  1875,  without  the  ratification  of  Parliament, 
is  that  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin.  The  contracting  parties  were  Great 
Britain,  France,  Germany,  Austria,  Italy,  Russia,  and  Turkey.  The 
Treaty  bears  the  date  of  July  13,  1878  ;  it  was  ratified  by  President  Mac- 
Mahon  after  the  prorogation  of  the  Chambers  and  promulgated  in  the 
Journal  Officiel  of  September  6,  1878. 


CH.  II  PERSONAL  ATTRIBUTES  OF  PRESIDENT  321 

France  and  Russia,  and  that  it  was  advantageous  for 
France,  took  pains  to  perpetuate  the  legend  that  the 
transactions  deemed  to  have  brought  France  out  of  her 
isolation  in  Europe  were  the  personal  acts  of  the  Chief 
of  the  State,  who  bore  a  name  associated  with  bygone 
glories  of  French  Republicanism  carried  beyond  French 
frontiers.^ 

It  is  not  the  practice  of  the  French  to  speak  imperson- 
ally of  "the  President,"  even  on  occasions  when,  as  Chief 
of  the  State,  he  is  treated  with  greater  ceremony  and 
deference  than  a  constitutional  sovereign.  When  M. 
Carnot  returned  to  Paris  from  his  summer  sojourns  at 
Fontainebleau,  or  when  M.  Faure  has  come  from  Havre 
to  preside  at  a  meeting  of  the  Cabinet,  it  has  been  the 
practice  for  the  President  of  the  Council  and  other 
Ministers  to  be  in  attendance  at  the  railway  terminus; 
though  the  English  sovereign,  when  paying  even  a  State 
visit  to  her  capital,  is,  on  alighting  from  the  train,  con- 
tent with  the  welcome  of  the  station-master.  It  is  to  be 
observed  in  the  published  record  of  these  occasions  that 

1  On  the  monument  erected  in  memory  of  President  Carnot  at  Nolay 
(C6te  d'or),  the  birthplace  of  his  grandfather  the  Organiser  of  Victory, 
eight  dates  and  names  of  places  are  inscribed  thus  :  "Limoges,  1837  :  Le 
Mans,  1870  :  Nolay,  1871 :  Versailles,  1887  :  Paris,  1889  :  Cronstadt,  1891  : 
Toulon,  1893  :  Lyons,  1894,"  and  they  are  said  to  summarise  his  life  and 
achievements.  Together  with  incidents  in  which  he  took  the  chief  part, 
such  as  his  birth,  his  death,  and  his  succession  to  the  Presidency,  comes 
"  Cronstadt,  1891 "  —  a  reference  to  the  visit  of  the  French  fleet  to  a  Rus- 
sian port,  which  took  place  during  the  presidency  of  M.  Carnot,  while  he 
was  never  within  a  thousand  miles  of  the  spot.  It  was  supposed  to  be  the 
first  act  of  the  Franco-Russian  Alliance  concluded  by  the  President,  and 
the  visit  of  a  French  squadron  to  Russian  waters  was  thus  treated  as  a 
personal  act  of  the  President,  as  a  visit  by  proxy.  The  inauguration  of 
this  monument  was  an  official  ceremony  presided  over  by  a  Minister  in 
September,  1895. 

VOL.    I  T 


822  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  u 

the  Minister  is  generally  designated  by  his  office,  while 
the  President  of  the  Republic  is  invariably  referred  to  by 
name.  Moreover  his  physiognomy,  as  well  as  his  name 
and  actions,  is  officially  impressed  on  the  imagination  of 
every  citizen  of  France,  by  means  more  effective  than  the 
unresembling  effigies  struck  on  coinage  whereby  loyal 
peoples  are  deceived  regarding  royal  lineaments.  If  a 
humble  subject  of  the  Queen  of  England  wishes  to  know 
the  veritable  features  of  his  sovereign,  he  must  purchase 
at  his  own  cost  her  likeness;  but  in  France  the  State 
forces  every  peasant  and  artisan  to  regard  that  of  the 
President  each  time  he  votes  at  an  election,  or  marries  a 
wife,  or  registers  a  birth.  The  mairie  is  the  centre  of 
local  life  in  rural  villages  and  crowded  towns  alike,  and 
after  the  new  President  has  been  escorted  back  from 
Versailles  to  Paris,  the  first  act  of  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior  is  to  approach  his  new  master  with  a  humble 
prayer  that  he  will  cause  his  portrait  to  be  taken  in  order 
that  it  may  be  reproduced,  distributed,  and  exposed  in 
the  forty  thousand  communes  of  France  and  Algeria. 

VII 

It  is  a  curious  lesson  in  the  vicissitudes  of  France  and 
of  her  governors  to  visit,  in  a  provincial  mairie  or  in  a 
prefecture  where  these  works  of  art  are  more  pretentious, 
not  the  official  chamber,  where  the  actual  Chief  of  the 
Executive  looks  down  from  the  walls  on  the  acts  of  cen- 
tralised administration  performed  within  them,  but  the 
basement  or  the  garret  where  the  lumber  of  generations 
moulders  in  the  dust.  Here  repose,  undisturbed  by  revo- 
lutions, the  portraits  of  all  the  past  rulers  of  France  since 


CH.  II  A  DISOWNED  GALLERY  823 

the  century  was  young.  The  latest  of  them  never  was 
exposed  to  view,  for  it  only  arrived  the  day  M.  Casimir- 
Perier  startled  the  provinces  with  his  resignation;  the 
look  of  tenacity  in  his  face  belying  the  ease  and  swift- 
ness with  which  his  enemies  made  him  climb  down  from 
power.  The  last  picture  that  was  hung  presents  the 
punctilious  form  of  M.  Carnot,  attired  in  the  correct 
black  broadcloth  set  off  with  the  ribbon  of  the  national 
order,  the  unfailing  subject  for  the  mirth  of  wits,  till 
the  night  the  crimson  of  the  Legion  of  Honour  hid  the 
stream  of  life-blood,  when  the  President  was  murdered 
in  his  wonted  costume  in  which  too  he  was  laid  to  rest 
in  the  Pantheon.  The  wily  features  of  M.  Grevy  sug- 
gest the  frugal  virtues  of  the  peasantry  rather  than  in- 
tegrity in  high  places,  exemplified  by  Carnot,  or  the 
warlike  gallantry  of  MacMahon.  The  Marshal's  uniform, 
here  presented,  calls  forth  memories  not  of  the  Seize  Mai, 
but  of  the  return  of  the  troops  from  Italy,  when  from  the 
field  of  Magenta  he  brought  back  an  almost  forgotten 
title  ;  it  revives  the  names  of  Sebastopol,  and  of  Malakoff, 
which,  blazoned  above  the  altar  in  the  chapel  of  the  Inva- 
lides  the  day  of  his  burial,  gave  greater  joy  to  the  Crimean 
veterans  than  to  the  officers  of  Russia,  whom  France  then 
was  feting  in  the  vague  hope  of  a  renewal  of  her  glories. 

The  next  in  the  ghost-like  series  is  M.  Thiers,  battered 
and  faded ;  but  the  shrill  visage,  beneath  the  pugnacious 
crest,  can  never  be  mistaken,  whether  found  in  old  prints, 
adorning  early  issues  of  his  youthful  history  of  the  Revo- 
lution, or  reproduced  by  Bonnat's  genius  half  a  century 
later,  or  here  under  the  dust  of  twenty  years.  It  is  well 
preserved  compared  with  the  mildewed  effigy  which  is 
behind.     This  is  evidently  copied  from  Hippolyte  Flan- 


324  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk,  ii 

drill's  NapoUon  III.^  for  dim  in  the  background  there  is 
the  outline  of  the  bust  of  the  great  Emperor,  and  com- 
paring the  features  or  looking  at  the  nebulous  eyes  of  this 
dreamer  in  epaulettes,  who  quitted  France  at  Sedan,  one 
wonders  if  the  songstress  of  the  brave  Dunois  believed 
her  son  to  be  by  blood  a  Bonaparte.  Louis  Philippe, 
blackened  and  crumbling,  can  just  be  recognised  by  the 
pear-shaped  head  of  Gavarni's  sketches.  But  the  Revo- 
lution of  July,  which  caused  the  diligence  to  bring  his 
portrait  to  this  country  town,  is  more  than  two  genera- 
tions away,  and  the  rats  have  left  nothing  but  a  phantom 
in  the  frame  of  his  Most  Christian  cousin,  whose  portraits 
were  better  taken  care  of  in  the  far-off  days,  when  his 
kingly  prospects  were  remote,  when  Drouais  painted  the 
little  Comte  d'Artois,  while  Louis  XV.  was  installing 
Mme.  du  Barry  at  Versailles,  and  Marie  Antoinette  was 
learning  French  at  Vienna.  Yet  this  musty  relic  of 
Charles  X.  is  interesting,  for  it  was  the  official  present- 
ment of  the  only  ruler  of  France,  hereditary  or  republi- 
can, constitutional  or  plebiscitary,  who,  during  a  hundred 
and  twenty  years,  has  succeeded  to  the  supreme  Execu- 
tive by  the  natural  death  or  normal  lapse  of  powers  of 
his  predecessor.  No  doubt  there  is  little  resemblance  be- 
tween the  flight  of  Louis  Philippe  to  Newhaven  and  the 
retirement  of  M.  Grevy  to  the  Avenue  d'lena,  but  both 
those  proceedings  were  abdications ;  and  certainly  it  is 
the  strongest  argument  in  favour  of  the  Republican  form 
of  government,  that  the  abdication  of  the  Chief  of  the 
Executive,  which  seems  inevitable  in  France  unless  an 
assassin  intervene,  is  effected  under  a  Republic  without 
revolution,  its  invariable  accompaniment  when  a  monarch 
is  impelled  to  lay  down  his  functions. 


CH.  11       CHARACTER  OF  MODERN  FRENCH  RULERS  325 

Two  reflections  an  Englishman  may  make  while  dis- 
turbing the  dust  of  this  disowned  gallery  of  once  ac- 
claimed French  rulers.  The  one  is  that  the  sovereign 
whose  subject  he  is  at  the  century's  close  has  witnessed 
the  investiture  and  the  destitution  of  all  these  monarchs 
and  presidents  within  her  lifetime ;  and  even  when  her 
reign  began,  the  first  of  the  series,  who  had  led  the  revels 
at  Trianon  for  years  before  the  Bastille  fell,  had  only  just 
ended  his  short  exile  at  Goritz.^  The  other  reflection  is 
that  while  his  own  country  has  been  spared  convulsion 
during  a  century  of  revolution,  and  while  one  placid  and 
prosperous  reign  has  covered  more  than  half  of  the  span 
which  lies  between  the  Old  Regime  and  the  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  variously  denominated  chiefs  of 
the  Executive  in  France,  from  Louis  XVI.  to  M.  Felix 
Faure,  have  been  distinguished  for  excellent  qualities, 
and  if  examined  individually  will  compare  favourably 
with  any  series  of  rulers  during  a  like  space  of  a  hundred 
and  twenty  years  in  any  government  of  ancient  or  modern 
times.  There  has  never  been  another  instance  of  empire, 
kingdom,  or  republic  suffering  so  sorely  for  more  than  a 
century  from  internal  vicissitudes  where  some  of  the  rulers 
might  not  be  classed  by  historians  of  forcible  style  as  mon- 
sters or  idiots.  As  none  of  the  rulers  of  France  during 
that  period  can  impartially  be  thus  designated,  in  spite 
of  Victor  Hugo's  florid  arraignments  of  Louis  Napoleon, 
and  the  scorn  of  the  old  Orleanists  for  the  mental  facul- 
ties of  Charles  X.,  this  seems  to  indicate  that  in  the  new 
era  nations  have  to  work  out  their  own  destiny.     The 

1  Charles  X.,  who  was  bom  in  1757,  died  on  October  6,  1836,  when  the 
Queen  was  seventeen  years  of  age,  about  eight  months  before  she  ascended 
the  throne.    His  reign  had  lasted  from  September,  1824,  to  July,  1830. 


320  THE   CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ri 

gigantic  figure  of  Napoleon  stands  apart,  as  a  phenom- 
enon which  rises  twice  perhaps  in  a  thousand  years  of 
the  world's  history.  It  may  be  it  was  the  strength  of  his 
grip  that  made  France  unfit  for  the  possession  of  men  of 
ordinary  stature  and  of  limited  powers,  and  though  he 
was  necessary  for  the  reconstruction  of  the  society  swept 
down  with  the  old  royality,  it  was  equally  needful  that  he 
should  have  left  a  successor,  the  heir  of  his  methods  and 
his  prowess.  However  that  may  be,  the  spectacle  which 
France  has  repeatedly  presented  of  misgovernment,  of 
anarchy,  or  of  revolution  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  char- 
acter of  her  rulers.  M.  Gr^vy  narrowly  escaped  ending 
his  term  of  office  as  boisterously  as  Charles  X.  ended  his 
reign ;  yet  there  was  nothing  in  common,  either  in  per- 
sonal temperament  or  in  public  policy,  between  the 
brother-in-law  of  Marie  Antoinette  and  the  father-in-law 
of  M.  Wilson.  Nevertheless,  but  for  the  unreadiness  of 
General  Boulanger,  and  the  fortuitous  calling  of  M.  Car- 
not,  an  insurrection  would  have  accompanied  the  presi- 
dential crisis  of  1887,  as  though  it  had  been  the  downfall 
of  a  monarchy. 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  whatever  the  character  of  the 
Chief  of  the  Executive,  and  whatever  regime  he  repre- 
sents, he  is  certain  to  incur,  sooner  or  later,  the  discon- 
tent of  a  sufficient  number  of  the  French  people  to  make 
his  position  untenable.  Moreover,  no  two  revolutionary 
movements  in  modern  France  can  be  ascribed  to  the  same 
cause,  whether  they  take  the  form  of  dethroning  a  dynasty 
or  of  upsetting  a  president.  It  was  as  the  protector  of 
clericalism  and  of  the  censorship  of  the  press  that  Charles 
X.  lost  the  crown  ;  it  was  the  agitation  for  electoral  re- 
form which  overturned  Louis  Philippe ;  Louis  Napoleon 


CH.  II  DIVERSE  CAUSES  OF  REVOLUTIONS  327 

might  have  suppressed  every  popular  liberty  with  impu- 
nity had  he  only  returned  from  the  frontier  victorious,  and 
it  was  the  fortune  of  war  which  destroyed  the  Second 
Empire.  Under  the  Republic  the  crises  which  have 
stopped  short  of  revolution,  thus  displaying  the  chief 
benefit  of  that  regime,  have  been  all  due  to  diverse  causes. 
The  force  which  impelled  Marshal  MacMahon  to  resign 
was  the  growing  contempt  in  the  country  for  the  inepti- 
tude of  the  reactionary  party  and  the  rising  cult  for  the 
genius  of  Gambetta  ;  M.  Grevy  nearly  had  the  honour  of 
a  revolution  to  escort  him  into  private  life,  .because  his 
dingy  failings  were  out  of  keeping  with  a  periodic  im- 
pulse of  the  nation  towards  the  glitter  of  dictatorship ; 
the  attacks  before  which  M.  Casimir-Perier  capitulated 
were  based  on  the  social  question. 

Is  it  therefore  to  be  inferred  that  the  French  are  as  a 
nation  prone  to  revolution  and  ungovernable  ?  If  each 
successive  revolutionary  movement  had  had  the  same 
direction,  if  it  had  been  a  violent  manifestation  of  an 
identical  doctrine,  then  it  would  be  just  to  assume  that 
the  great  upheaval  of  1789  was  still  fermenting,  and  that 
revolutions  would  recur  so  long  as  any  article  of  the 
Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man  was  infringed.  But 
the  periodical  disturbances  which  convulse  France  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  doctrine  of  1789.  No  doubt  the 
habit  of  insurrection  was  then  acquired,  and  as  the  Revo- 
lution of  1830  was  nominally  directed  against  the  heirs  of 
the  old  Monarchy,  the  first  of  the  series  in  this  century 
took  its  place  as  the  putative  offspring  of  the  great  Revo- 
lution. But  subsequently  the  Days  of  June  which  were 
the  cause  of  Louis  Napoleon  obtaining  the  supreme  power, 
the  uprising  which  proclaimed  his  fall,  and  the  rebellion 


328  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

of  the  Commune  had  no  more  connection  with  the  doctrine 
of  1789  than  the  Boulangist  movement  or  the  demonstra- 
tions of  the  new  Socialists,  which  have  more  recently  put 
ideas  of  revolution  into  men's  minds. 

When  it  is  further  considered  that  the  vast  majority  of 
the  French  people  is  peaceable  and  industrious,  it  be- 
comes clear  that  revolution  is  chiefly  to  be  feared  from 
the  fitful  discontent  of  the  turbulent  of  Paris  and  of 
certain  industrial  centres.  The  best  form  of  government, 
therefore,  for  France  is  the  one  which  can  best  keep  in 
hand  that  section  of  the  population.  Here,  no  doubt,  the 
advantage  of  the  Republican  form  becomes  most  apparent, 
not  because  it  is  the  creation  of  1792,  but  for  the  anatomi- 
cal reason  that  its  head  is  a  removable  accessory  and  not 
a  vital  organ.  Hence  the  Republic,  with  its  succession  of 
Presidents,  whom  it  can  shed  in  turn  without  hurt  to 
itself,  would  be  the  ideal  regime  for  France  if  her  children 
could  divest  themselves  of  their  ever-smouldering  desire 
for  a  hero  to  worship  and  a  master  to  submit  to.  This 
latent  instinct  is  the  weakness  of  the  Republican  system  ; 
for  it  will  not  only  kill  it  one  day,  but,  meanwhile,  it  so 
alarms  its  defenders  that  they  use  all  the  force  of  govern- 
mental machinery  to  crush  men  of  parts  who  seem  apt  to 
win  popular  favour.  It  was  thus  that  Gambetta  found 
the  way  to  the  Presidency  barred  for  him ;  yet  by  cut- 
ting short  his  career  his  enemies  nearly  secured  for  France 
a  worse  fate  than  his  dictatorship  ;  for  the  people's  desire 
to  be  governed  was  not  buried  with  him,  and  but  for  his 
death  General  Boulanger  would  never  have  inspired  a 
legend.  It  has  become  a  commonplace  to  applaud  the 
patriotism  of  the  politicians  who,  aided  by  circumstances, 
ridded  France   of  that   soldier  of  fortune ;    yet  no   one 


CH.  11  THE  OFFICIAL  FEAR  OF  GREAT  MEN  329 

knows  for  certain  that  the  country  would  have  been  worse 
off  had  he  been  called  to  power,  and  the  government  of 
the  Republic  since  his  day  has  not  been  so  perfect  as  to 
make  it  impossible  to  conceive  a  better.  Because  he  was 
a  pitiful  adventurer  it  does  not  of  necessity  follow  that 
he  would  have  been  a  bad  administrator.  We  all  have 
heard  of  the  veteran  miserably  slain  six  months  after 
attaining  the  supreme  power,  who  would  have  been 
deemed  to  be  "capax  imperii  nisi  imperasset " ;  ^  and 
there  may  be  men  who  have  just  failed  to  reach  success 
of  whom  an  epigram  in  the  converse  sense  might  be 
made.  The  narrow  escape  which  the  country  then  had, 
makes  the  guardians  of  the  Constitution  take  excessive 
precautions  in  overshadowing  honourable  achievements 
likely  to  win  popularity;  and  the  spectacle  has  been 
witnessed  in  Republican  France  of  a  General,  returning 
home  victorious  after  a  colonial  war,  treated  as  though  he 
were  afflicted  with  an  infectious  disease  certain  to  dis- 
seminate contagion  and  therefore  to  be  kept  from  the 
sight  and  touch  of  his  fellow-countrymen.  ^ 

If  the  Third  Republic  is  fearful  of  paying  excessive 
honour  to  its  sons  during  their  lifetime  lest  it  should 
thus  endow  them  with  sufficient  strength  and  prestige 
to  overturn  it,  it  has  an  original  method  of  proving  to 
the  world  that  it  is  not  barren  in  great  men.  It  does 
not  stint  its  funereal  tribute  to  those  who,  having  died 
in  its  service,  can  never  become  popular  idols  dangerous 
to  the  established  regime.  A  stranger  arriving  in  Paris 
and  finding  its  monuments  swathed  in  black,  its  boule- 
vards lined  with   thousands  of  troops   to  salute   in   its 

1  Tacitus  :  Hist.  i.  49. 

2  Greneral  Dodds  on  his  return  after  the  Dahomey  expedition  of  1892. 


880  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  ii 

passage  a  pompous  bier  borne  along  to  the  martial 
music  of  an  heroic  march,  asks  why  these  trappings  of 
woe,  why  this  imposing  pageant,  deployed  with  all  the 
art  of  which  the  French  are  masters,  suggestive  of  a 
nation  mourning  its  noblest  son?  Obsequies  stately  as 
these  could  only  be  offered  to  one  who,  in  the  hour  of 
vicissitude,  had  done  the  country  services  like  those  of 
Thiers  and  Gambetta,  or  to  an  immortal  genius  like 
Victor  Hugo.  It  cannot  be  that  another  President  of 
the  Republic  has  met  with  untimely  death  ;  and  the  last 
Marshal  of  France  has  stiU  a  short  span  to  complete 
before  he  is  borne  to  the  Invalides  with  the  supreme 
homage  due  to  the  distant  memory  of  a  once  victorious 
army. 

The  name  that  the  stranger  hears  on  the  lips  of  the 
crowd,  which  has  the  air  of  curiosity  rather  than  of 
lamentation,  conveys  little  to  his  mind,  even  though  he 
be  a  student  of  European  politics  ;  and  if  he  pursue  his 
inquiries,  he  ascertains  that  this  funereal  parade,  the  like 
of  which  is  seen  in  England  only  once  or  twice  in  a 
century  when  a  Nelson  or  a  Wellington  is  laid  to  rest,  is 
in  honour  of  a  politician  who  has  held  office  for  two 
brief  spaces  in  two  ephemeral  ministries,  and  who  ended 
his  career  by  presiding  over  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
for  a  few  weeks  :  the  total  period  of  his  office-holding 
having  amounted  to  about  one  year.  But  even  on  the 
morrow  when  Parliament,  despite  a  frugal  protest,  votes 
to  the  bereaved  family  a  pension  double  that  accorded 
to  the  widow  of  a  Marshal  of  France,  the  country  rests 
unconvinced  of  the  greatness  of  the  dead  man  thus 
glorified,  only  perceiving  in  its  scepticism  that  under 
the  Republic  the  most  profitable  of  all  pursuits  is  that  of 
politics. 


CH.  II  THE  FRENCH  NEED  FOR  A  CHIEF  331 

In  spite  of  the  efforts,  both  of  the  jealous  and  of  the 
disinterested,  the  day  will  come  when  no  power  will 
prevent  France  from  hailing  a  hero  of  her  choice. 
Whether  he  will  bear  the  name  of  a  once  reigning 
dynasty,  or  whether  he  will  be  a  statesman  to  inspire 
or  a  soldier  to  lead  to  victory,  the  next  generation  will 
know.  Judging  from  history  it  is  unlikely  that  France 
will  be  appreciably  happier  or  unhappier  under  the  new 
regime  than  under  past  dispensations,  and  its  duration 
could  not  be  predicted  even  if  its  founder  were  revealed. 
It  is  possible  that  the  present  system  under  which 
France  is  governed  is  as  effective  as  any  other  for  pro- 
ducing the  greatest  happiness  of  the  greatest  number ; 
but  no  country  can  remain  in  the  first  rank  of  European 
nations,  in  the  sense  that  French  temperament  regards 
the  first  rank,  without  conspicuous  leaders  of  men.  In 
Switzerland  individual  well-being  attains  a  high  standard, 
and  there  the  system  of  the  impersonality  of  the  govern- 
ment is  so  well  carried  out  that  the  Presidents  who 
succeed  one  another  every  year  are  individually  as  little 
known  to  fame  in  their  country  as  are  the  Lord  Mayors 
of  London  in  our  own;  and  it  is  probable  that  not  one 
in  a  million  of  the  strangers  who  visit  the  Helvetic 
Republic  ever  knows  by  name  the  President  of  the 
Confederation  for  the  time  being.  But  this  sinking  of 
personality  will  never  suit  the  genius  of  the  French 
nation.  It  was  essayed  in  the  Revolution,  and  the 
result  was  the  greatest  and  most  masterful  personality 
that  ever  despotised — Napoleon. 

That  France  should  become  a  swollen  Switzerland  is 
not  a  prospect  to  appeal  to  patriotic  sentiment,  but  there 
are  worse  fates  awaiting  democracies  than  the  inglorious 


882  THE  CHIEF  OF  THE  STATE  bk.  n 

prosperity  of  the  federated  cantons.  The  United  States 
are  as  prosperous  as  Switzerland,  and  have  with  affluence 
become  almost  as  barren  in  art  and  in  letters,  after  an 
early  season  of  wondrous  literary  promise.  It  is  true 
that  in  that  vast  Republic  the  name  of  the  President  is 
familiar  to  every  citizen ;  but  his  renown,  while  it  affords 
no  danger  of  dictatorship,  does  not  make  his  office  an 
object  of  ambition  for  the  worthiest  members  of  the  com- 
munity. The  abstention  from  politics  of  the  better  types 
of  Frenchmen  combined  with  the  growing  materialism  of 
the  upper-classes  of  the  capital,  are  symptoms  which  can- 
not be  regarded  with  indifference,  when  the  example  of 
America,  of  too  great  influence  in  France,  is  contem- 
plated. The  dangers  and  difficulties  which  now  beset 
peoples  are  of  a  different  order  from  those  which  were 
apparent  a  hundred  years  ago  when  the  calendar  was 
dated  from  the  new  era  of  the  change  of  things ;  but 
signs  are  not  wanting  that  the  French  nation  may  need 
as  strong  a  hand  to  guide  it  out  of  the  nineteenth 
century  as  that  of  the  First  Consul  which  brought  it 
thither. 


INDEX 


Abbaye,  massacre  of  the,  222. 

Aberdeen,  Lord,  61. 

Aboukir,  battle  of,  224. 

About,  Edmond,  40. 

Academic  Palms,  174. 

Acadimie  Fran^aise,  43,  62, 104-105, 
139, 143,  214. 

Acadia,  239. 

Administrative  system  (see  also  Cen- 
tralisation, Napoleon) :  identical  all 
over  France,  15 ;  excessive  number 
of  Functionaries,  25,  33,  237;  its 
strength  makes  up  for  bad  political 
government,  44;  founded  by  Na- 
poleon, 21,  112-114 ;  survives  all 
regimes,  36,  124-126,  257,  269;  the 
liberties  of  functionaries,  150-161, 
160-161. 

Africa,  South,  107,  252. 

Agincourt,  battle  of,  62. 

Aigues-Mortes,  17. 

Aix-en-Provence,  16. 

Ajaccio,  30. 

Alacocque,  Marie,  17. 

Albi,  239. 

Alexander  I.  (of  Russia),  46,  111. 

Algeria,  13,  15,  17,  234. 

Allies  in  Paris  (1814-15),  46,  96,  111, 
249-250,  266,  262. 

Alpes  Maritimes,  dept.  of,  14,  20. 

Alsace-Lorraine,  28,  31,  47,  99,  216, 
233,  251. 

Amboise,  316. 

America,  United  States  of  {see  also 
Tocqueville),  1-3,  9,  61,  67,  194, 
332;  War  of  Secession  in,  60,  221; 
constitution  of,  265-266,  284 ;  presi- 
dential elections,  309;  spoils  sys- 
tem, 285. 

Ami  dii  Penple,  L\  218. 

Anciens,  Coiiseil  des,  272 


Ancient  Regime,  84,  87,  88,  98,  128, 
168,  206;  modern  Parisian  society 
compared  with  that  of,  191-196;  idea 
of  patriotism  under,  230-232. 

Angers,  13. 

Anglomania,  61, 193,  205. 

Anglo-Saxon  race,  expansion  of,  67, 
233. 

Angouleme,  Due  d',  121. 
Duchesse  d',  121. 

Annecy,  15, 17, 141, 143,  300. 

Anti-clericals  and  anti-clericalism, 
147-166;  civil  interments,  147;  the 
Ferry  Laws,  148 ;  in  the  provinces, 
149-155. 

Arago,  M.  Emmanuel,  219. 

Areola,  battle  of,  107,  279. 

Aries,  16. 

Army,  the  French,  48,  63, 120. 

Arnold,  Mr.  Matthew,  140, 145-146. 

Artois,  Comte  d'  (see  also  Charles  X.) , 
117-118, 122,  232,  278,  324. 

Assembly,  Legislative,  of  1791, 100. 

Assembly,  National,  of  1789,  72, 100, 
113, 168. 

Assembly,  National,  of  1871,  28,  67 ; 
its  composition  and  debates,  263, 
264,  273 ;  its  powers  and  work,  266, 
281. 

Aulard,  M.,  135. 

Aumale,  Due  d',  62,  102. 

Austerlitz,  battle  of,  87, 114,  120. 

Austria,  Anne  of,  117. 

Austro-Hungary,  68. 

Authoritative  government,  agreeable 
to  the  French,  137,  244,  320,  328 ; 
necessary  complement  of  central- 
ised system,  33,  247. 

Autun,  9,  107,  109. 

Auvergne,  17. 

Auxonne,  30. 


333 


334 


INDEX 


Aveyron,  dept.  of,  16. 
Avignon,  16. 

Balzac,  H.  de,  184. 

Barante,  Baron  de,  74, 184. 

BarSre,  Bertrand,  77,  103. 

Barodet,  M.,  275. 

Barra,  Joseph,  223. 

Barras,  103, 107,  110,  119,  239. 

Barre,  Chevalier  de  la,  158. 

Barrfere,  M.  Camille,  Preface. 

Barry,  Mme.  du,  324. 

Bartholomew,  St.,  massacre  of,  188. 

Basses  Alpes,  dept.  of,  21. 

BastUle,  fall  of  the,  90,  96,  99,  133- 
134,  168,  173, 198,  209,  221,  232. 

Bazaine,  Marshal,  280. 

Beauharnais,  Eugene,  69. 

B^jarry,  A.  de,  224. 

Belfort,  12. 

B^ranger,  P.  J.,  124,  255. 

Bernadotte,  69. 

Bernard,  St.,  143. 

Bert,  M.  Paul,  55, 148. 

Berthier,  Prince  de  Wagram,  110. 

Bertin  aine,  163. 

Berry,  Due  de,  293. 

Berry,  the,  14,  207. 

6esan9on,  12,  99. 

Bicetre,  225. 

Bill  of  Rights,  262. 

Bismarck,  Prince,  250-261,  275. 

Blanc,  Louis,  81. 

Blenheim,  battle  of,  63. 

Bliicher,  Field-Marshal,  250. 

Boers,  252. 

Boissy  St.  Leger,  110. 

Bolingbroke,  Lord,  145. 

Bonapartists,  229;  in  Assembly  of 
1871,  263,  273,  277. 

Bonaparte,  family  of  (see  also  Napo- 
leon), 30,  69,  74,  246. 

Bonnat,  M.,  223,  323. 

Bordeaux,  14,  35,  213,  273. 

Borghese,  Pauline,  7,  246. 

Boscobel,  223. 

Bossuet,  144. 

Boulanger,  General,  281, 294-297, 326, 
328-329. 

Bourg-en-Bresse,  11,  313. 

Bourgeoisie,  the :  and  the  great  Revo- 
lution, 82,  167-168,  305;  and  the 
ReyolatioQ  of  July,  2,  305;    inter- 


marriages with  noblesse,  185 ;  Radi- 
cal and  Socialist  use  of  term,  194, 
306, 313, 314 ;  general  modern  defiui- 
tion,  313. 

Bourges,  14,  314. 

Boutmy,  M.  E.,  261,  262,  266. 

Bray,  French  Vicars  of,  248. 

Brest,  239. 

Breton,  M.  Jules,  223. 

Brie,  the,  20,  57,  109,  264. 

Brisson,  M.,  297,  305,  309,  314. 

British  Constitution,  46,  111,  115; 
effects  of  its  imitation  in  France, 
46,  246,  257. 

Brittany,  13,  99,  156,  202,  231,  315. 

Broglie,  Abbe  de,  229. 

Broglie,  Due  (Albert)  de,  276,  287. 
Duchesse  de,  49,  116. 

Brosses,  C.  de,  241. 

Brown's  Estimate,  241. 

Browning,  Mr.,  255. 

Brumaire,  Coup  d'etat  de,  93,  108, 
109,  267,  272,  278. 

Brunoy,  seigneurie  of,  279. 

Brunswick,  House  of,  242. 

Buffet,  M.,  12. 

Bulwer,  Henry  (Lord  Dalling),  199. 

Burgundy,  17,  99,  231. 

Byng,  Admiral,  241. 

Byron,  Lord,  31,  76. 

Cabinet  Council,  see  Council  of  Min- 
isters :  Ministerial  instability. 

Calais,  the  loss  of,  62. 

Calas,  Jean,  158. 

Camargue,  16. 

Cambon,  M.  Jules,  11,  38. 

Cambronne,  General,  249. 

Campaign  of  France,  110. 

Campo  Formio,  Peace  of,  107. 

Canada,  235,  239. 

Candide,  240. 

Canning,  Mr.,  253. 

Capet,  Hugues,  272. 

Carcassonne,  14. 

Carmagnole,  the,  230,  306. 

Carnot,  Hippolyte,  103,  298. 

Carnot,  Lazare,  103,  297,  299,  307. 

Carnot,  M.  Sadi,  President  of  the 
Republic,  29,  104,  229,  272,  307,  31.1, 
320 ;  his  election  to  Presidency,  297 ; 
career  and  character,  298  seq.; 
death,  304,  323. 


INDEX 


335 


Carrier  (of  Nantes),  217. 

Casa-Bianca,  Lucien,  224. 

Casiinir-Perier,  M.  J.,  President  of  the 
Republic,  Prime  Minister,  302-303 ; 
election  to  Presidency,  304;  his 
antecedents,  305-307;  his  term  of 
office,  306-309,  312,  315,  323,  327. 

Casimir-Perier,  family  of,  305. 

Cassagnac,  M.  P.  de,  229. 

Castellane,  M.  de,  282. 

Castiglione,  battle  of,  116, 120. 

Castlereagh,  Lord,  253. 

Cavaignac,  General,  311. 
M.  Godefroy,  309-310. 

Gawnpore,  221. 

Centralisation  (see  also  Administrative 
System,  Napoleon) :  conforms  to 
French  needs  and  ideas,  34  seq., 
113,  244 ;  incompatible  with  Parlia- 
mentary government,  33,  83;  no 
likelihood  of  decentralisation  in 
France,  3iseq.,  270. 

Cevennes,  the,  17. 

Chabannes,  Comte  de,  209-210. 

Chablais,  the,  17, 144. 

Challemel-Lacour,  M.,  94,  95, 105. 

Chambery,  21,  315. 

Chambord,  Comte  de,  265;  and  the 
White  Flag,  277. 

Chantal,  Sainte,  141. 

Chant  du  Depart,  218,  223. 

Chaptal,  College,  201. 

Charlemagne,  the  new,  120,  257. 

Charles  II.  (of  England),  63,  94,  223, 
279. 

Charles  VII.,  117,  152,  156. 

Charles  IX.,  186. 

Charles  X.,  78, 164,  276, 324,  826,  326 ; 
coronation  of,  117, 118, 122. 

Charlotte,  Princess,  256. 

Charmettes,  les,  21. 

Charollais,  the,  17. 

Charter  of  1814,  46,  72. 

Chartres,  15. 

Chateaubriand,  184. 

Chateaux,  French,  8, 11, 13, 20, 61, 191. 

Chenier,  M.  J.,  217. 

Chinon,  152. 

Church,  the:  Concordat,  9,  112,  114, 
138,  139,  156 ;  character  of  clergy, 
56,  56,  ir.1,  159,  229;  clergy  before 
Revolution,  56,  74,  119,  216;  and 
Revolution  of   1848,   80;   attitude 


to  free-thought,  138-145;  conflicts 
with  Republic,  138,  286,  290;  and 
Voltaire,  141,  145 ;  and  the  Revolu- 
tion, 160;  the  Seize  Mai,  286;  asso- 
ciation with  Monarchists,  291. 

Church  of  England,  141,  142,  145-146, 
151. 

Cinq  Cents,  Conseil  des,  272. 

Civil  burial,  147. 

Civilisation:  the  progress  of,  causes 
greater  changes  than  did  French 
Revolution,  3,  192,  198,  257;  per- 
meation of,  to  humble  classes,  205- 
207 ;  old  civilisation  of  France,  208, 
257. 

Claretie,  M.  Jules,  31,  1(M. 

Clarke,  Mrs.,  253. 

Clary,  69. 

Class  feeling,  201  seq. 

Classification  and  formula,  French 
tendency  towards,  243,  245,  266. 

Clemenceau,  M.,  7,  90,  91,  251,  297. 

Clerical  party,  the  Seize  Mai,  286; 
alliance  with  Monarchists,  291. 

Cl^ricalisnie,  Le,  voila  I'ennemi,  160, 
287. 

Clermont-Ferrand,  17. 

Clovis,  118,  188,  254. 

Codes,  the  (Civil,  Penal,  etc.),  113, 
129. 

Colenso,  Bishop,  143. 

College  de  France,  19,  40, 146. 

Colonies,  British,  9,  67,  70,  235-236. 

Colonisation,  French,  232-239;  re- 
straints on,  234-235  seq.;  effect  of 
testamentary  law,  236. 

Comment  on  Christmas,  146. 

Com.mission  des  Trente,  264. 

Committee  of  Public  Safety,  103. 

Commune :  insurrection  of,  38,  57, 86, 
146,  220,  225,  230,  250,  274,  275. 

Condorcet,  I.yce'e,  203. 

Condorcet,  Marquis  de,  113, 128. 

Congress  for  election  of  President  of 
the  Republic,  282-283,  294. 

Coningsby,  198. 

Constitution  of  1848,  127,  263-364, 
266. 

Constitution  of  1875,  127,  263-270 
unlike  all  which  preceded  it,  264 
without  scientific  interest,  265 
articles  relating  to  chief  of  execu- 
tive, 282  seq. 


SS6 


INDEX 


Constitutional  precedents,  practice 
and  law,  261  seq.,  272,  288,  300-302; 
no  scientific  study  of,  in  France, 
265 ;  in  England,  266 ;  conception  of 
unconstitutional  conduct,  288-289. 

Constitutional  revision,  267,  290;  in 
England,  268. 

Consulate,  the,  79,  88, 119,  272. 

Conti,  Prince  de,  193. 

Continental  blockade,  130. 

Contrat  Social,  217. 

Convention  of  1792,  72,  77,  79-81,  91- 
92,  102,  110,  113,  168,  217,  264,  279, 
310. 

Convention,  English  Parliamentary, 
of  1688,  261. 

Corday,  Charlotte,  74. 

Cordeliers,  92. 

Corps  L^gislatifoi  1816,  261. 

Corsica,  13,  30,  119. 

Council  of  ministers  {see  also  Minis- 
terial instability),  283,  285,  288. 

Coup  d'&tat  of  1851,  83,  220,  248, 267, 
280,292. 

Cour  de  France,  111. 

Cousin,  Victor,  123. 

Cr^cy,  battle  of,  63. 

Creuse,  dept.  of,  14. 

Crimean  War,  59,  323. 

Criminal  procedure  in  France,  13S- 
134. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  62,  94. 

Cruppi,  M.  Jean,  135. 

Cult  of  the  dead,  154,  228,  229. 

Dakish  War,  60. 

Danton,  74,  91-92,  135,  222. 

Darboy,  Archbishop,  225. 

David,  Sacre  de  NapoUon,  118-120. 

Davout,  Due  d'Auerstaedt,  182. 

Dayot,  M.  A.,  La  Revolution  Fran- 

Qaise,  133. 
"Days  of  June"  (see  Revolution  of 

1848),82,  219,  327. 
Declaration  of  the  Rights  of  Man, 

102, 138,  212,  221,  263,  272,  327. 
Deffant,  Mme.  du,  198. 
Deity,  the  name  of  the,  155. 
Deschamps,  M.  Gaston,  133,  240. 
Desmoulins,   Camille,  105,  168,  170, 

209. 
Detaille,  M.,  223. 
Deux  Sevres,  dept.  of,  20. 


Dictatorship  (see  Authoritative  gov- 
ernment) :  the  French  latent  liking 
for,  312,  318,  320,  328 ;  official  pre- 
cautions against,  317,  329. 

Diderot,  20,  89,  128, 195,  254. 

Dijon,  17. 

Directory,  the,  74,  93,  96,  103,  106, 
279. 

Disraeli,  Mr.,  32,  198-199. 

Dodds,  General,  329. 

Dole,  153. 

Domicile,  violability  of,  136. 

Domremy,  12,  62. 

Dossiers,  150. 

Dowry,  custom  of,  197,  236. 

Dragonnades,  154. 

Drama,  the  French,  28. 

Drouais,  324. 

Drumont,  M.,  228. 

Duelling,  209. 

Dufaure,  M.,  265,  292. 

Dufferin,  Lord,  7. 

Dumas  fils,  Alexandre,  28. 

Dumouriez,  102, 124,  279. 

Dupanloup,  Mgr.,  122, 139, 143, 146. 

Dupuy,  M.,  301. 

Duruy,  Victor,  162. 

Dutch  in  the  Medway,  the,  262. 

I^COLE  Normale,  203. 

J^cole  Polytechnique,  203. 

Education  (see  also  University) :  the 
Professoriate,  54 ;  in  the  Lycees,  132, 
161,  201,  203;  in  Catholic  schools, 
161,  202;  inculcation  of  equality, 
202 ;  schoolboy  life  in  France,  132, 
203. 

Edward  II.,  261. 

Egypt,  Campagne  of,  93, 107. 

Eighteenth  century  (see  also  Ancient 
Regime) :  intellectual  revolution  of, 
130 ;  society  of,  191-195 ;  intellectual 
charm  of,  195;  idea  of  patriotism 
in,  230. 

Elba,  123,  266,  279. 

Eldon,  Lord,  136. 

t,\y&ie>,  Palace  of  the,  295,  318. 

Emigration,  the,  16,  91, 121, 198,  206, 
231. 

Empire,  Second,  96;  effect  of,  on 
Napoleonic  legend,  48,  124,  247; 
national  character  under,  27,  40, 48 ; 
its  revolutionary  tradition,  72,  75, 


INDEX 


337 


82-84,  93 ;  Opposition  under,  40,  84 ; 
and  M.  Taine,  85, 162 ;  its  disastrous 
fall,  48, 124, 250, 273 ;  relations  with 
the  Church,  162,  164;  and  titles  of 
nobility,  170,  179;  and  oppressed 
nationalities,  214. 
Encyclical,  Papal,  of  1892,  14, 160. 
Encyclopaedists,  the,  39, 129, 130, 196, 

231. 
Enghien,  Due  d',  125. 
England  and  France :  relations  of, 
69-64, 215 ;  titles  of  nobility  in,  171, 
175-177 ;  orders  and  distinctions  in, 
173;  nomenclature  in,  187;  histor- 
ical anniversaries  in,  222 ;  ideas  of 
patriotism  in,  233,  238;  colonising 
spirit  in,  235  seq.;  effect  of  unset- 
tled government  in,  240-241 ;  effect 
of  geographical  position  on  national 
temper,  249-253 ;  modern  historical 
associations  in,  254-256 ;  revolutions 
of,  compared,  262;  constitutional 
revision  in,  267-268. 
England,  Queen  of  {see  also  Victoria, 

Queen),  318,  321-322,  326. 
English     revolutions :     comparisons 
with,  drawn  by  French  Liberals,  40, 
77,  78,  91 ;  compared  with  French 
Revolution,  73,  262. 
l^pinal,  12. 

;6pinay,  Mme.  de,  195. 
Equality,  167-212:  under  the  Revolu- 
tion, 167-170 ;  French  ideas  of,  168, 
208;  titles  of  nobility,  169;  orders 
and  decorations,  171  seq. ;  Montes- 
quieu upon,  200;    in  the  schools, 
201  seq. ;  superficial  phase  of,  204 ; 
the   duel   a   symbol  of,    209-210; 
railway  travelling,  211. 
Erfurt,  130. 
Esprit  critique,  26,  86. 
Esprit  de  corps,  203. 
Esprit  des  Lois,  200. 
Executive  power,  the,  271  seq.  {see 
also  President  of   the  Republic) ; 
attributes  of   chief   of,   271,   282; 
character  of  chiefs  of,  since  Revo- 
lution, 325. 

Faubouro  St.  Germain,  178,  203: 

see  also  Noblesse,  etc. 
Fanre,  M.  F^lix,  President  of   the 

Republic,    29,    165-156,    272,    325; 

VOL.    1 


his   election    to    Presidency,   311; 
origin  and  career,  311-316. 

Favre,  M.  Jules,  264-266. 

Federation  of  1790,  232. 

F&elon,  144. 

Ferney,  142, 168,  196. 

Ferry,  M.  Jules,  12,  148,  229,  240, 
247,  251,  268,  289,  296. 

Fesch,  Cardinal,  119. 

Feuillants,  92. 

Feuill^e,  M.  Martin,  268. 

Feuillet,  Octave,  28. 

Filioque  clause  of  the  creed,  157. 

Financial  causes  of  the  Revolution, 
97-99,  167,  235. 

Flandrin,  Hippolyte,  323. 

Flaubert,  G.,  208. 

Floquet,  M.,  296,  297. 

Fontainebleau,  abdication  of,  110, 
278. 

Fontenoy,  battle  of,  63. 

Foreign  relations  {see  England  and 
France,  Russian  Alliance),  216; 
French  popular  interest  in,  319. 

Forez,  10. 

Fouch^,  Due  d'Otranto,  107, 170,  279. 

Foulon,  Cardinal,  11. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  76. 

Foy,  General,  123. 

France:  the  pleasantness  of  life  in, 
24,;44,  71,  235;  the  tranquillity  of 
the  people,  67,  328 ;  their  industry 
and  thrift,  44, 58,  236 ;  their  orderly 
instincts,  243  se^.;  its  importance  in 
the  world,  67-77 ;  cult  of  domestic 
affections  in,  214 ;  art  in,  223 ;  soil 
of,  love  of  French  for,  233,  239; 
treatment  of  fallen  rulers  of,  247; 
its  modern  historical  associations, 
264-267 ;  reconstruction  of  (see  Na- 
poleon), 257. 

France,  M.  Anatole,  45,  66. 

Franche-Comte',  101. 

Francis  I.,  Emperor  of  Austria  (pre- 
viously Francis  II.,  Emperor  of 
Grermany) ,  267. 

Francis-Joseph  II.  (Emperor  of  Aus- 
tria), 319. 

Franco-German  War,  45,  86,  153,  216, 
220,  247,  250,  253,  273 ;  its  effect  on 
French  character,  27  seq.,  261, 
253. 

Fraufois  de  Sales,  St.,  143. 


338 


INDEX 


Frankfort,  Treaty  of,  27,  263. 

Fraternity,  213-230;  at  the  Revolu- 
tion, 213,  216-219;  harshness  of 
French  to  French,  215  seq.;  the 
cult  of  fratricide,  221  seq. 

Freemasons,  154-156. 

Freethought  and  freethinkers:  atti- 
tude of  Church  to,  139,  141,  143, 
145-146 ;  influence  of  Voltaire,  142- 
143;  intolerance  towards  religion, 
148-166;  in  French  provinces,  149 
seq. 

Fr^jus,  106. 

Freppel,  Mgr.,  7. 

Freycinet,  M.  de,  294,  296,  297. 

Friedland,  battle  of,  115. 

"  Friend  of  the  foreigner,"  252. 

Frohsdorf ,  276. 

Froissart,  63. 

Functionaries,  see  Administrative 
system. 

Funeral  honours  paid  to  politicians, 
329-330. 

Oallicans  and  Gallicanism,  138, 140, 
143, 148. 

Galliffet,  General  de,  182. 

Oallus  Gallo  Lupus,  216-220,  225,  see 
Fraternity. 

Gambetta,  41,  160,  183,  265,  273,  275, 
284,  289,  310,  327,  330 ;  his  share  in 
founding  the  Republic,  275,  289; 
the  jealousy  he  excited,  292,  296, 
303,  328 ;  his  occult  power,  292. 

Garat,  262. 

Gavarni,  324. 

Generalisation:  inappropriate  in  a 
treatise  on  France,  4. 

Genlis,  Mme.  de,  192. 

Geoffrin,  Mme.,  198. 

George  III.,  46, 195,  256. 

Gerard,  Sucre  de  Charles  X.,  118. 

Germany  (see  also  Franco-German 
War),  12,  60,  247;  prominence  of, 
in  the  world,  68-71 ;  German  criti- 
cism and  philosophy,  68, 143 ;  French 
feeling  towards,  214-215. 

Girondins,  the,  77,  81,  91, 92, 105, 168, 
252 ;  Lamartine's  History  of,  80,  81, 
88,89. 

Gladstone,  Mr.,  76. 

Goethe,  76,  130. 

Grontaut  Biron,  M.  de,  275. 


Goritz,  326. 

Grande  Armie,  123. 

Grandval,  20,  195. 

Granville,  Harriet,  Conntess,  249. 

Gravelotte,  battle  of,  221. 

Greece,  214. 

Grenoble,  11,  274. 

Gre'vy,  M.  Jules :  President  of  the  Re- 
public, 278,  280,  291,  293,  312;  elec- 
tion to  Presidency,  25)1 ;  his  double 
term  of  office,  283,  294;  his  jeal- 
ousy of  Gambetta,  292,  303;  his 
character,  295,  318,  323,  326-327; 
his  fall,  295,  299,  324. 

Gros  Bois,  Ch&teau  de,  110, 

Guadet,  81. 

Guibert,  Cardinal,  146. 

Guizot,  M.,  40,  60,  80,  82. 

Gunpowder  Plot,  223. 

"Gyp,"  193. 

Halevt,  M.  Ludovic,  19. 

Hamerton,  Mr.  P.  Q.,  10,  22. 

Hampden,  78. 

Hanotaux,  M.,  214. 

Hanover,  House  of,  242. 

Haussonville,  Comte  d',  182. 

Hautes  Alpes,  dept.  of,  21. 

Havre,  311,  315. 

Hemans,  Mrs.,  255. 

Henri  IV.,  186. 

Henry,  M.  Ars^ne,  21. 

Hero-worship:  the  form  it  takes  in 
France,  312,  317,  328;  the  means 
used  to  suppress  it,  329. 

High  office  in  France  the  ruin  of  popu- 
larity, 296,  303. 

Hoche,  General,  266. 

Hohenlohe,  Prince,  264. 

Holbach,  Baron  d',  20,  195. 

Holy  Alliance,  40. 

Hortense,  Queen,  246. 

Hotel  Rambouillet,  61. 

Hugo,  Victor,  41,  63,  184,  326. 

Huguenots,  17,  62. 

Hugues,  M.  Clovis,  230. 

Hulst,  Mgr.  d',  182-183. 

Hundred  Days,  111. 

Hundred  Years'  War,  63. 

Huxley,  Mr.,  142,  146. 

Imperial,  Prince  (Louis  Napoleon), 
108,  278,  293,  310. 


INDEX 


S89 


Improvisation,  243  seq. 

India,  French  in,  235,  239. 

Indian  Mutiny,  221. 

Indifference    of    French    to    public 

affairs,  36,  40,  58,  136,  154, 163,  247, 

311. 
Indre,  dept.  of,  14. 
Ingres,  1(53. 
Institute  of  France  (see  also  Acade- 

mie  Fran9aise),  107,  113, 163,  195. 
Intolerance,    138-166;    ecclesiastical, 

139-145;  anti-clerical,  147-166;   in 

England  and  in  France,  137,  151; 

in  provinces,  149-153;  peculiarities 

of  French,  152,  153,  157;    official, 

150,  154-155 ;  and  anarchy,  165. 
Invalides,  Hotel  des,  188,  323,  330. 
Invasion,  the  phantom  of,  250-253. 
Invasions    of     1814-1815,    110,    215, 

249. 
Ireland,  Archbishop,  162,  164. 
Ireland,  invasion  of,  262. 
Is^re,  dept.  of,  11,  21. 
Italian  nation,  61, 68 ;  French  feeling 

for,  215. 
Italian  "War  of  1859,  60. 
Italy,  Army  of,  119,  225. 

Jacobins,  the,  78,  81,  94,  103,  105, 
164,  165, 168,  216,  252. 

Jacobites,  241. 

James  II.,  63,  78,  249. 

Jansenists,  138. 

Janson  de  Sailly,  Lyc^e,  144. 

Janssen,  M.,  37. 

Jemmapes,  battle  of,  102,  279. 

Jena,  battle  of,  87,  95,  114,  120,  260, 
254. 

J'y  suisj'ij  reste,  282. 

Jesuits,  138,  202. 

Joan  of  Arc,  62, 117,  152, 156. 

Jocelyn,  81. 

Jordan,  the,  249. 

Joseph  Bonaparte,  111. 

Josephine,  Empress,  107, 119,  265. 

Journal  des  D4hats,  149, 163,  226. 

Journalism,  characteristics  of  French, 
18,  29,  42,  135,  137,  150,  215,  218, 
226-230,  298,  307,  316;  at  Revolu- 
tion, 100,  218. 

Juvisy,  117. 

Khaktoum,  240. 


Either,  Marshal,  266. 

Laboulaye,  M.,  57. 

Lacroix,  209. 

La  Fayette,  72, 100. 

La  Fontaine,  155. 

La  Hogue,  battle  of,  63. 

Lally  ToUendal,  81. 

Lamartine,  72,  78-82,  101, 184. 

Lamballe,  Princesse  de,  222. 

Lamennais,  Abb^  de,  184. 

Landes,  dept.  of,  14, 16. 

Lanfrey,  P.,  124. 

Lang-Son,  disaster  of,  240. 

Langue  d'Oil,  63. 

La  Pe'rouse,  239. 

La  Rochelle,  14,  62. 

Las  Casas,  124. 

La  Tr^moille,  Due  de,  74, 186. 

Launay,  Governor  de,  133. 

Lavigerie,  Cardinal,  13,  223. 

Lavisse,  M.,  40. 

Lavoisier,  128, 129. 

Lebon,  M.  Andre',  240. 

Le  Creuzot,  10. 

Legion  of  Honour,  113,  171-174,  295. 

Legitimists,  169;  in  assembly  of  1871, 
263,  265. 

Leighton,  Sir  F.,  14. 

Leipsic,  battle  of,  114. 

Lemaitre,  M.  Jules,  43-44. 

Leman,  Lac,  17. 

Le  Mans,  13. 

Leopold  II.  (King  of  the  Belgians), 
319. 

Leo  XIII.,  160. 

Leporch^,  M.,  156. 

Le  Puy,  17. 

Leroy-Beaulieu,  M.  Anatole,  50. 

Leroy-Beaulieu,  M.  Paul,  Preface,  19. 

Lettres  de  cachet,  133. 

Liberals,  the  old,  164. 

"  Liberator  of  the  Territory,"  274- 
275,  see  Thiers. 

Liberty,  127-166 :  French  and  English 
conceptions  of,  128 ;  connection  with 
Revolution,  128  seq. ;  its  theoretical 
study  in  France,  128,  131-132 ;  per- 
sonal liberty  —  untried  prisoners, 
132-135;  violability  of  domicile, 
135;  liberty  of  opinion,  138  seq.; 
effect  of  sectarian  subdivision  on, 
138  seq.;  limitations  of   religioxis 


340 


INDEX 


liberty,  148-162 ;  restraints  imposed 
in  name  of,  157 ;  restraints  on,  do 
not  interfere  with  general  happi- 
ness, 136, 164. 

"  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity," 
127,  131,  213. 

Limoges,  14. 

Literature  and  Dogma,  140. 

Literature:  and  French  Society,  18, 
60, 184 ;  under  July  Monarchy,  184; 
in  Grand  Si^cle,  242. 

Littre',  E.,  139. 

Local  Government  Board,  37. 

Local  Government,  see  Administra- 
tive system. 

Lockroy,  M.,  188. 

Loubet,  M.,  302. 

Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  (see  also 
Napoleon  HI.),  80-83,  95,  112,  127, 
137,  267,  272,  280,  290,  310,  324,  327. 

Louis  Philippe,  30,  34,  72,  78, 102, 122, 
170,  247-248,  277,  324. 

Louis  XIV.,  63,  154,  188,  215, 242. 

Louis  XV.,  67,  239,  242,  267,  324. 

Louis  XVI.,  78,  87, 100, 105, 117,  113, 
122, 129,  195,  262,  264. 

Louis  XVII.,  95. 

Louis  XVHL,  92,  95, 116, 170, 278, 305. 

Lourdes,  14, 17. 

Louvre,  pictures  in  the,  118, 163, 193, 
225,324. 

Luxembourg,  Palais  du,  121, 219;  gal- 
lery of,  223. 

Lyc^es,  see  Education. 

Lyons,  11, 13, 16, 17,  38, 147, 154. 

Lytton,  Lord,  7. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  77-79,  91,  241,  261. 

MacMahon,  Marshal,  President  of  the 
Republic,  29, 164, 182, 312,  320,  323, 
327 ;  elected  to  the  Presidency,  275 ; 
his  Septennate,  264,  278,  281,282; 
the  Seize  Mai,  286-291. 

Maine,  Duchesse  du,  192. 

MalakofE,  battle  of,  282,  323. 

Malesherbes,  128. 

Malmaison,  the,  119,  254. 

Malmesbury,  Lord,  96. 

Malplaquet,  63. 

Manhood  Suffrage,  see  Universal  Suf- 
frage. 

Manning,  Cardinal,  7,  140. 

Marat,  101,  209,  218,  222. 


Marceau,  General,  224-225,  255. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  153. 

Marengo,  battle  of,  109,  120. 

Marie  Antoinette,  Queen,  81,  117,  195, 
256,324. 

Marie-Louise,  Empress,  111,  123. 

Marlborough,  Duke  of,  63. 

Marly,  194. 

Marmont,  Marshal,  111,  279. 

Marmontel,  Marquis  de  Brunoy,  279. 

Marseillaise,  the,  76,  101,  226,  249. 

Marseilles,  13,  35,  101. 

Marslials  of  France,  posthumous 
honours  to,  330. 

Martin,  M.  Henri,  105. 

Martyrs  of  Lyons  and  Vienne,  154. 

Massacres  of  September,  94,  222,  226, 
230. 

Mass^na,  Marshal,  Due  de  Rivoli,  265. 

Maupeou,  Chancellor,  267. 

Mazarin,  Cardinal,  63,  117. 

Meaux,  Vicomte  de,  10. 

Mecklenburg,  Grand  Duke  of,  264. 

M^dicis,  Catherine  de,  188. 

Memorial  of  St.  Helena,  92, 124. 

Menthon  St.  Bernard,  17, 143. 

M6rite  Agricole,  174. 

Messidor,  Decree  of,  21. 

Methodical  spirit  of  the  French,  243- 
245. 

Methods  of  studying  a  foreign  coun- 
try, 1-6,  21-25. 

Metternich,  Prince  Clement,  213. 

Metz,  83,  280. 

Meudon,  37. 

Michelet,  Jules,  17,  81, 104. 

Middle-classes,  see  Bourgeoisie. 

Ministerial  instability  under  the  Re- 
public, 49,  292,  293,  302-303. 

Ministries,  see  Council  of  Ministers. 

Mirabeau,  87,  100, 129. 

Moltke,  Field-Marshal,  250. 

Monarchists,  their  dissensions  in  As- 
sembly of  1871,  263,  278;  their 
political  ineptitude,  276,  291;  alli- 
ance with  the  clericals,  286,  291. 

Monarchy  of  July  (see  also  Louis 
Philippe,  Orleanists),  2,  30,  34,  72, 
77,  79,  93,  183, 184,  198,  267. 

Monde  oit  I'on  s'ennuie,  le,  28. 

Moniteur,  the,  262. 

Monk,  the  tradition  of,  in  France, 
279-281. 


INDEX 


S41 


Monopoly,  Government,  of  tobacco, 

136. 
Mont  St.  Jean,  see  Waterloo. 
Montalembert,  Comte  de,  11,  184. 
Montals,  Mgr.  de,  280. 
Montauban,  16. 
Montesquieu,  130,  200,  213. 
Montmartre,  20,  58. 
Montpellier,  16. 
Moore,  Sir  John,  255. 
"Moral  order,"  government  of,  277 

seq. 
Morbihan,  dept.  of,  13,  202. 
More,  Mrs.  Hannah,  255. 
Mortier,  Marshal,  Due  de  Tr^vise, 

121. 
Morvan,  10. 
Moscow,  114,  257. 
Moulins,  100. 
Mulhouse,  12. 
Mun,  Comte  Albert  de,  7,  13,  51, 182, 

183,228. 
Musset,  A.  de,  31, 184. 

Nancy,  12. 

Nantes,  14,  217. 

Nantes,  Revocation  of  Edict  of,  149. 

Napoleon :  his  attention  to  detail,  5, 
244,  245;  his  fabric  of  centralized 
administration,  21,  34  seq.,  44,  83, 
87,  112-114,  125,  152,  164,  257;  his 
career,  work,  and  character,  30, 95, 
106-115,  256,  272,  325, 326 ;  his  coin- 
age, 47 ;  the  son  of  the  Revolution, 
72,  92,  106,  117,  331 ;  criticised  by 
Taine,  34,  87, 113,  124-125 ;  opinion 
on  Robespierre,  92;  on  Duchesse 
d'Angouleme,  121;  Napoleonic  le- 
gend, 96, 123, 124, 246  ;  reconstructor 
of  France,  109,  122 ;  organised  the 
Revolution,  112  seq.,  117,  217,  245; 
coronation  of,  118-120,  229 ;  second 
burial  of,  31 ;  Imperial  nobility, 
169,  178,  180;  Legion  of  Honour, 
171 ;  nomenclature  of  French  citi- 
zens, 187 ;  testamentary  law,  199 ; 
his  plan  to  invade  England,  253; 
his  magnitude  a  disadvantage  for 
France,  271,  :i25,  326. 

Napoleon  III.,  40,  83,  95,  170, 246,  260, 
312,  324. 

National  defence,  Government  of, 
273,  292 ;  inquiry  into  acts  of,  29. 


Nelson,  Lord,  256,  330. 

Ney,  Marshal,  Prince  de  Moskowa, 
121,  188,  219. 

Nice,  20. 

Nicholas  I.  (of  Russia),  59. 

Nicholas  II.  (of  Russia),  46, 156,  157. 

Nimes,  17 ;  the  Maison  Carrie,  188. 

Nineteenth  century,  close  of,  63,  67, 
74,332. 

Nivernais,  the,  17. 

"  Noble  birth,"  177. 

Noblesse,  French,  before  the  Revolu- 
tion, 99, 177 ;  abolition  of  privilege 
and  titles,  169;  reconstituted  by 
Napoleon,  170,  178 ;  under  Restora- 
tion, 178;  under  Second  Empire, 
178 ;  under  Republic,  169,  175 ;  de- 
cadence of  noble  class,  49,  51,  182, 
196-200,  306 ;  its  Anglomania,  193, 
205. 

Nomenclature,  State  supervision  of, 
187. 

Normandy,  6,  20. 

Notre  Dame  de  Paris,  118, 156,  229. 

Nouvelles  Couches,  Les,  274. 

Ollivier,  M.  Emile,  105,  179. 

Opinion,  public,  in  France,  136. 

O.  P.  riots,  253. 

Ordinaire,  Dionys,  41. 

Origines  de  la  France  Contemporaine, 

see  Taine. 
Orleanists  {see  also  Royalists,  Louis 

Philippe),  30;  in  assembly  of  1871, 

263. 
Orleans,  Ducd'  (Philippe  EgaliteO,  72, 

102,  122. 
Orleans,  Due  d'  (son  of  Comte  de 

Paris),  69. 
OrMans,    Due    d'    (son    of    Louis 

Philippe),  293. 
Orleans  family,  69,  122,  216,  277. 
Orle'ans,  Prince  Henri  d',  216. 
Oxford,  128,  132,  140. 

Pailleron,  M.,  28. 

Palais  Royal,  the,  192. 

Palmerston,  Lord,  61. 

Panama  affair,  310. 

Paray-Le-Monial,  17. 

Paris,  Comte  de,  182,  186;  bis  sub- 
mission to  Comte  de  Chambord,  277 ; 
and  Boulangism,  281. 


342 


INDEX 


Paris:  society  of,  18,  48-62,  190, 
191  seq.;  intellectual  work  in,  19; 
its  cosmopolitan  aspect,  51,  193, 
194, 197 ;  opinion  of  the  Boulevards, 
137, 215 ;  Municipal  Council  of,  222 ; 
the  theatre  of  revolutions,  57,  327. 

Parliament,  English,  261;  a  labour- 
member  of,  in  France,  306. 

Parliamentary  system :  its  effect  on 
the  spirit  of  the  nation,  31,  39,  330 ; 
incompatible  with  centralised  ad- 
ministration, 33  seq.;  Parliament 
not  used  for  quiet  redress  of  griev- 
ances, 137;  the  power  of  the  mi- 
nority, 154;  no  real  resemblance 
with  its  English  model,  302;  no 
names  before  constituencies  at 
elections,  302 ;  not  suited  to  French 
temperament,  31,  308;  rarity  of 
business  men  in  political  life,  311. 

Particule,  the,  177,  201. 

Pascal,  10. 

Pasquier,  Chancellor,  98. 

Pasteur,  M.,  174,  196. 

Patriotism,  French:  its  connection 
with  Revolution,  101,  230  seq. ; 
before  Revolution,  230;  territorial 
rather  than  racial,  233,  238;  and 
colonisation,  234  seq. ;  effect  on,  of 
unsettled  government,  240  seq. ; 
effect  on,  of  fear  of  invasion,  250- 
253. 

Peasantry,  9,  45,  56,  223,  227,  236; 
their  love  of  the  soil,  99 ;  their  civ- 
ilisation, 205-206. 

Peerage,  English  and  French  nobility, 
176-177. 

Perceval,  Spencer,  256. 

Perraud,  Abb^  C,  10. 

Perraud,  Cardinal,  Bishop  of  Autun, 
9. 

Perreyve,  Henri,  10. 

Pessimism :  its  growth  and  phases  in 
France,  25-52 ;  its  connection  with 
civilisation,  26;  with  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  27, 29 ;  with  the  sys- 
tem of  French  government,  32  seq., 
39  seq. ;  pessimist  influences  in 
France,  41-45,  50-62,  247-249. 

Peut-on  travailler  en  province,  19. 

Picardy,  17. 

Pitt,  Mr.,  176,  252. 

Pins  VII.,  118-120,  257. 


Plutocracy:  its  influence  in  French 
society,  192,  194,  197,  198-201,  268. 

Pochon,  M.,  160,  313. 

Poitou,  20. 

Poland,  214. 

Political  eminence,  jealousy  of,  in 
France,  292,  296,  303,  311. 

Politics,  French:  and  society,  no 
relations  between,  18,  52,  198;  bit- 
terness of,  2i),  31,  218,  226,  229; 
unsoftened  by  national  misfortune, 
29,  239,  250 ;  causes  of  political  ill- 
temper,  240,  245,  249:  abstention 
of  the  best  class  of  men  from,  36, 
332. 

Population,  not  increasing  in  France, 
56,  67,  237. 

Portraits  of  rulers  of  France,  322-324. 

Praslin,  Duchesse  de,  80. 

President  of  the  Republic  {see 
Executive,  Thiers,  MacMahon, 
Gr^vy,  Carnot,  Casirair-P^rier, 
Faure),  271,  332 ;  and  the  Church, 
156-157 ;  creation  of  oflBce  in  1871, 
273;  M.  Grevy's  early  opinion  on 
the  office,  281,  292;  mode  of  elec- 
tion under  Constitution  of  1875, 
282 ;  powers  and  prerogatives,  283- 
286;  term  of  ofl8ce  and  re-election, 
283;  his  patronage,  285;  right  of 
dissolving  and  adjourning  Parlia- 
ment, 286 ;  the  nomination  of  min- 
isters, 288;  elections  of,  282,  291, 
293,  296-297,  304,  311 ;  his  action  in 
Ministerial  crises,  298  seq. ;  theory 
of  his  impersonality,  307,  315,  320- 
322,  331;  anomalies  of  his  position, 
317 ;  his  relations  with  foreign  gov- 
ernments, 318-321 ;  ceremonious 
treatment  of,  321-322;  circulatiou 
of  his  portraits,  322. 

Pretender,  the  Young,  256. 
the  Old,  241. 

Pr^vost-Paradol,  M.,  40. 

Prime  Ministers  of  the  Third  Repub- 
lic, 276,  302. 
Broglie,  Due  do,  276,  287. 
Casimir-P^rier,  M.,  302. 
Dufaure,  M.,  288. 
Dupuv,  M.,  301. 
Ferry,  M.  Jules,  293,  296,  310. 
Freycinet,  M.  de,  293,  294,  296. 
Garabetta,  M.,  303,  310. 


INDEX 


343 


Loubet,  M.,  300,  302. 
Ribot,  M.,  300,  302. 
Rochebouet,  General  de,  287. 
Simon,  M.  Jules,  285-287. 
Waddington,  M.,  293. 
Pritchard  Affair,  61. 
Privilege,  before  the  Revolution,  98, 

167,  170,  176,  188,  216. 
Processions,  religious,  158-159. 
Protestants,  French,  17, 139, 144, 147- 

148, 164. 
Provence,  15,  215,  231. 
Provence,  Comte  de,  280:  see  Louis 

XVIII. 
Provincial  France,  6-21 ;  the  charm  of 
travel  in,  8,  16;  rarity  of  English 
travellers  in,  14;  intellectual  work 
in,  19-20;  intolerance  in,  149-159; 
the  clergy,  159  ;  civilisation  of 
humble  classes,  205-206. 
Public  decency,  207. 

Quakers,  visit  of,  to  Tsar  Nicholas, 

59. 
Quimper,  156. 

Radical  party,  90-91,  96,  297. 

Railway  companies  and  the  govern- 
ment, 211, 

Rambouillet,  194. 

Rambouillet,  Hotel,  51. 

Reactionaries,  see  Monarchists,  Le- 
gitimists, Orleanists,  Bonapartists. 

Reichstadt,  Due  de  (King  of  Rome) , 
95,293. 

Reims,  12, 117,  121,  166,  188,  264. 

R^musat,  C.  de,  184,  275. 

Renan,  M.,  7,  19,  39,  196;  his  testi- 
mony to  the  clergy,  66;  on  the 
French  Revolution,  104-105;  and 
Matthew  Arnold,  140,  146. 

Representative  government,  see  Par- 
liamentary system. 

Reprise  de  Toulon,  La,  217. 

Republic,  First,  93-95,  101, 134. 

Republic,  Second,  13,  72,  76,  80,  83, 
127,  263-265,  281,  292,  310. 

Republic,  Tliird,  growth  of  Pessimism 
under,  27-31;  its  durability,  33; 
and  the  Revolution,  41,  93-94; 
strengthened  by  conduct  of  Reac- 
tionaries, 278;  its  origin,  94,  262, 
273,  290;  due  to  monarchical  dis- 


sensions, 265,  278;  personal  liberty 
under,  135,  136;  religions  contro- 
versy under,  138;  intolerance  un- 
der, 149-161 ;  tyranny  of  the 
minority,  154-155,  165 ;  the  church, 
160;  recognition  of  titles  of  nobil- 
ity, 169,  181,  183,  188;  literature 
and  society  under,  184,  198 ;  public 
decency  under,  207 ;  its  statesmen, 
208;  ministerial  instability  under, 
292;  posthumous  honours  to  its 
great  men,  329-330. 

Republican  form  of  government,  ad- 
vantage of,  324,  328,  331. 

Restoration  period,  86,  99,  116  seq., 
129,  219,  245,  279;  its  blitheness, 
29, 123;  the  Liberals  under,  40,  49, 
91,  116,  123;  its  connection  with 
Revolution,  72,  272 ;  nobility  under, 
16,  169,  205. 

Revision  of  Constitution,  268,  290. 

Revolutionary  Calendar,  75,  90,  95, 
130. 

Revolutionary  movements  in  France, 
diverse  causes  of,  326-327. 

Revolution  of  1848,  80,  88,  219,  272. 

Revolution  of  July,  2,  30,  93,  122, 219, 
324,  326,  327. 

Revolution  of  September  4,  1870, 250, 
273,  291. 

Revolution,  the  French,  2, 4;  its  chief 
result  the  centralised  administra- 
tion, 3, 19,  125,  257 ;  and  the  Third 
Republic,  41,  94 ;  and  Modern 
France,  67-258;  tradition  of  the, 
41,  72  seq.,  85-90,  102;  nature  of 
its  importance,  73, 257 ;  our  genera- 
tion not  remote  from  it,  75 ;  attitude 
of  English  Whigs  to,  78-79 ;  Lamar- 
tine's  glorification  of,  80-82 ;  Taine's 
criticisms  of,  42,  86-90,  165;  the 
"  Block  "  theory,  91  seq. ;  period  of 
the,  91-96,  116;  its  inevitableness, 
97;  suppression  of  privilege,  98, 
167, 169,  188 ;  swift  spread  of  move- 
ment, 99 ;  influence  in,  of  abstract 
doctrine,  88,  97,  102,  103,  144,  216; 
destructive  policy  and  anarchy  of, 
100,  106,  130 ;  Jacobin  conquest  of, 
165,  216 ;  warlike  and  patriotic  as- 
pect of,  101,  106,  217-218,  230  seq., 
256-257;  unwarlike  aspect  of,  103, 
105;  organised  by  Napoleon,  112; 


844 


INDEX 


his  work  alone  saryives  of  it,  120, 
267 ;  liberty  under  it,  and  inherited 
from  it,  128,  132 ;  its  effect  on  relig- 
ious intolerance,  139  seq.;  and  equal- 
ity, 167-171,  209 ;  abolition  of  titles, 
169;  and  the  society  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  193-196;  civilising 
consequences  of,  207;  and  Social- 
ism, 212;  its  doctrine  of  fraternity, 
213,  218,  221  seq. ;  humanitarian 
doctrine  of,  216-220 ;  its  heritage  of 
unsettled  government,  242-247 ;  in- 
fluence of,  on  colonisation,  235; 
pseudo-classicism  of,  264;  its  con- 
nection with  subsequent  revolu- 
tions, 327. 

Ribot,  M.,  300,  302. 

Richard  H.,  261. 

Rivoli,  battle  of,  95,  120. 

Robespierre,  74,  92,  93,  102,  105,  168, 
170. 

Roche,  M.  Jules,  43. 

Rochebouet,  General  de,  287. 

Rohan,  Due  de,  16 ;  titles  of,  202. 

Rouget  de  Lisle,  101,  225. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  4,  21,  87,  100,  128-130, 
141, 144,  195,  218. 

Roux  and  Bouchez,  Histoire  Parle- 
mentaire,  85. 

Royal  families  of  Europe :  their  Ger- 
man origin,  69. 

Royal  Oak  Day,  222. 

Russia,  68. 

Russia,  Napoleonic  wars  with.  111, 
114,  257. 

Russia,  relations  of  France  vrith,  45 
seq.,  60-62,  75,  156,  214,  251,  320- 
321,  323. 

Sadb,  Marquis  de,  133. 

Sadowa,  battle  of,  48,  60. 

St.  Did,  12,  253. 

St.  :^tienne,  11. 

St.  Helena,  30, 108, 121 ;  Memorial  of, 

92. 123. 
St.  Just,  75. 

St.  Simon,  169,  192,  230. 
St.  Sulpice,  146. 

Sainte-Beuve,  M.,  41,  76,  81,  86. 
Saintonge,  17. 
Salon,  the  extinction  of,  51, 192,  198, 

199. 
Samoyedes,  the,  76. 


Sand,  Gteorge,  14. 

Sanitary  improvements,  207. 

Sarcey,  M.  F.,  41,  240. 

Sardou,  M.,  90. 

Sarthe,  dept.  of,  155. 

Savoy,  16,  141, 143,  195,  299. 

Savoy,  House  of,  69. 

Say,  M.  Ldon,  264. 

Scepticism,  political  (see  Pessimism), 

163,  247,  330. 
Schiller,  76. 

Schneider,  M.  Henri,  10. 
Schoelcher,  M.,  210. 
Sebastopol,  323. 
Sedan,  battle  of,  28-29,  48,  124,  221, 

247,  254,  273,  277,  324. 
Se'gur,  P.  de,  184. 
Seize  Mai,  the,  28&-291 ;  its  constita- 

tional  aspect,  288. 
Semaine  de  Mai,  221. 
Separation  of  the  powers,  271,  309. 
Septennate,   the,   of  Marshal   Mao- 

Mahon,  264,  278,  281-283. 
Serment  du  Jeu  de  Paume,  169,  221. 
Sdvignd,  Mme.  de,  264. 
Shelley,  255. 
Sheridan,  H.  B.,  76. 
Sidney,  Algernon,  78. 
Sieyes,  Abbe,  107, 108. 
Simon,  M.  Jules,  76,  99, 147, 188,  228, 

264,  285-287. 
Smith,  Sidney,  255. 
Socialism:   in  Germany,  70;   and  the 

Revolution,  212 ;  Socialist  party  in 

Parliament,  304,  308;   attitude  of 

Socialists   to   middle-classes,   306- 

307;  their  definition  of  bourgeois, 

313-315. 
Society,  French,  18,  4^53,  191-198. 
Soissons,  253. 
Solferino,  battle  of,  215. 
Soult,  Marshal,  Due   de   Dalmatie, 

121. 
Spain,  Invasion  of,  112, 116. 
Spanish  Marriages,  61. 
SpuUer,  M.,  304. 
Stael,  Mme.  de,  49,  91, 93, 94, 110, 115, 

125,224. 
Stanislas,  College,  201. 
States-General  of  1789,  96,  232,  305. 
Strasbourg,  12,  99,  101. 
Suffrage,  see  Universal  suffrage. 
Suffren,  Bailli  de,  239. 


INDEX 


845 


Sulpicians,  141. 
Sweden,  Kings  of,  69. 
Swiss  Guard,  massacre  of,  102. 
Switzerland,  172,  217,  331. 

Taqus,  the,  249. 

Taine,  M.,  7, 15, 143-144, 147,  162, 196, 
213;  Cornets  de  Voyage,  5;  Origines 
de  la  France,  17,  21,  42,  71,  85-90, 
142,  165,  245  ;  on  Macaulay,  77 ;  his 
influence,  41,  88;  his  method  of 
work,  86-87,  89,  244 ;  on  Napoleon, 
36,  87,  108,  113,  124,  130;  on  Eng- 
land, 5, 128, 132 ;  on  Voltaire,  142. 

Talavera,  battle  of,  263. 

Talleyrand,  Prince  de,  10,  46,  107, 
111,  119, 122,  232,  279. 

Tancred,  32. 

Taxation,  23, 112 ;  inequalities  of,  be- 
fore the  Revolution,  98-99,  167, 
236. 

Temps,  Le,  149,  163,  155,  226. 

Terror,  Reign  of  (see  also  Jacobins, 
Thermidor,  Robespierre),  91-92, 101, 
103, 106, 128, 163,  168,  199,  213,  217, 
230,250. 

Testamentary  succession,  law  of,  200 ; 
its  effect  on  colonisation,  236. 

Theatre  Fran9ais,  90, 104, 113. 

Thermidor,  75 ;  Sardou's  drama,  90. 

Thiers,  M.,  President  of  the  Republic, 
29,  61,  61,  86,  273  seq.,  312,  316,  323, 
330 ;  his  share  in  founding  the  Re- 
public, 274 ;  his  dismissal  from  the 
Presidency,  276. 

Titles  of  nobility:  abolition  at  Rev- 
olution, 169;  under  Republic,  170- 
171;  attitude  of  Republic  to,  181, 
189 ;  usage  not  regulated,  175, 177- 
181 ;  consequences  of  multiplication 
of,  181-186;  irregular  assumption 
of,  179, 182, 186 ;  in  the  army,  182. 

Tocqueville,  A.  de,  184:  compared 
with  Arthur  Young,  1-5;  and  the 
Revolution,  81,  93,96;  on  Revolu- 
tion of  1848,  83;  Dimocratie  en 
Am^rique,  1-6,  266-267,  269. 

Toleration:  in  France  and  in  Eng- 
land, 138,  145 ;  need  for,  in  France, 
144 ;  forces  of,  in  France,  154, 163. 

Tonkin,  240,  261,  296. 

Toulouse,  14. 

Toulouse,  battle  of,  62. 


Touraine,  6,  17,  152. 

Trade  Unions,  151. 

Trafalgar,  battle  of,  255. 

Treaties  with  foreign  powers,  319. 

Treaty  of  Berlin,  320. 

Trianon,  192,  325. 

Tricolour,  the,  72,  124,  277. 

Tricoteuses,  the,  101,  207. 

Tronchet,  129. 

Tuileries,  the.  Massacre  of,  101,  222 ; 

cowp  d'etat  of  Brumaire,  110. 
Tyndall,  Mr.,  145. 

Ultramontanks  and  Ultramontan- 
ism,  138,  144. 

Universal  suffrage  (manhood  suf- 
frage), 34,  39,  47,  82,  85;  and  arbi- 
trary government,  83,  94,  267-268. 

"University,"  the  (see  also  Educa- 
tion) :  decentralisation,  37 ;  teach- 
ing body  as  a  profession,  54,  204; 
organised  by  Napoleon,  113,  114. 

Unsettled  government :  a  heritage  of 
the  Revolution,  240-247,  257. 

Uz^s,  Due  d',  188  seq. 

Valence,  16. 

Valley,  Baronne  de,  74. 

Valmy,  battle  of,  98,  130,  279. 

Valois  kings,  90. 

Van  Loo,  Une  halte  de  chasse,  193. 

Vannes,  13,  202. 

Varennes,  the  flight  to,  72. 

Vauban,  230. 

Vendue,  the,  20,  150-151,  207 ;  war  of, 

223-225,  233. 
Ventavon, M.  de, 263. 
Vergniaud,  77,  82. 
Vernet,  Carle  and  Horace,  226. 
Versailles,  Court  of,  87,  98,  188,  192, 

195,  324,  325 ;  galleries  of,  120,  225 ; 

army  of,  220, 230 ;  Government  and 

National  Assembly,  289,  296 ;  Peace 

of,  273. 
Vesonl,  12. 
Victoria,  Queen  (see  also  England, 

Queenof),74,  242,  326. 
Vienne,  16. 
Vigny,  A.  de,  184. 
Villaines,  152. 
Villiers,  Mr.  C.  P.,  76. 
Vizille,  306. 
Vogu^,  M.  de,  182. 


8M 


INDEX 


Voland,  Mile.,  20. 

Voltaire,  6,  89.  128-130,  138-140,  158, 

241 ;  attitude  of  Church  to,  141-146 ; 

his  work,  142,  262. 
Vosges,  the,  12,  215,  263. 

Waddinoton,  M.  Richard,  Preface. 

Waddington,  M.  W.  H.,  7,  293. 

Wagram,  battle  of,  96,  263. 

Walcheren  expedition,  253. 

Waldeck-Rousseau,  M.,  309. 

Walpole.  Sir  R.,  193. 

War :  French  dread  of,  38,  54 ;  salu- 
tary effect  of,  on  Revolution,  102 
seq.,  217;  civil,  60,  219-222. 

Warens,  Mme.  de,  141. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  31, 60, 62, 63, 116, 
219,  249,  255,  261,  279. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  256,  279,  330. 


Westermann,  General,  224. 

Weymouth,  256. 

Whigs,  the  English,  77-78,  256. 

White  Flag,  277  seq. 

White  Terror,  the,  116,  219. 

Wilhelmshohe,  280. 

William  I.  (German  Emperor),  260. 

William  II.  (German  Emperor),  69. 

William  III.  (of  England),  78. 

Wilson,  M.  Daniel,  295,  297,  326. 

Women:  in  French  society,  51,  197; 
have  no  rank  or  title  from  hus- 
band's decorations,  174. 

Worth,  battle  of,  27. 

YoEK,  Duke  of,  253. 
Young,  Arthur,  1-6,  99, 196. 

Zola,  M.,  206-207. 


JK 


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